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Wonder Woman 2017

Started by Apestrife, 03 November, 2016, 08:29:45 PM

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SIP

SERIOUS SPOILERS ABOVE!!!!

TordelBack

#46
Positronic saw a different film than I did: [spoiler]Diana thought the sword was the godkiller; Hippolyta explains that the whole purpose of the Amazons was to foster harmony between mankind, hence the languages; everybody did get all peace-and-lovey the instant Ares was killed, hence the Howling Commandos hugging the Jerries[/spoiler]. But there you go.

However I did think it was a right mess of a thing, even though Gadot's stellar presence and Diana's naivety turning to belief completely saved it for me.

I loved the Thermysicra bit: the look, the montages, the balletic combat, and especially the wonderful General Buttercup. Unfortunately I couldn't make head nor tail of what was supposed to be happening in the Western Front/Veld sequences (starving enslaved villages in ruins, but with beer, unbroken windows and a working gas supply, and no German reinforcements available?) and I thought maybe they could have spent five whole minutes on Ares' design, including a total transformation from [spoiler]Thewlis[/spoiler], and maybe something clarifying his powers (did he absorb the other gods' powers?) cause Magneto-[spoiler]Lupin[/spoiler]-Sauron should never have been a thing. Ugh.

The looming flying (?) Diana at the very end was also "huh?".

But: positive message, an occasionally sharp and funny script, very prettily designed in places (ugly as crap in others), and a truly luminous lead.

sheridan

Quote from: Supreme Pizza Of The DPRK on 06 June, 2017, 09:52:07 PM
Seeing this on the weekend weather permitting. Glad to see people are actually going to see this, I was starting to think it could be another Ghostbusters...

How does weather affect whether you see it?  Unless you have a picnic or barbecue if it's sunny and only go to the cinema if it isn't?

Supreme Pizza Of The DPRK

Quote from: sheridan on 11 June, 2017, 08:40:40 AM
How does weather affect whether you see it?  Unless you have a picnic or barbecue if it's sunny and only go to the cinema if it isn't?

Monsoon season starts this week, need to make the most of the sunshine and get all the outdoor jobs finished. If I miss a film at the cinema I can always buy the bluray. The weather isn't really within my control.

Greg M.

Saw this today. It killed a couple of hours. Gal Gadot herself is very charming and suits the part well, but the film itself was oddly charmless, and I didn't feel Gadot and Pine had any chemistry. Pretty poor overall - at times generic, at times confused.

dweezil2

Quote from: Greg M. on 11 June, 2017, 04:28:41 PM
Saw this today. It killed a couple of hours. Gal Gadot herself is very charming and suits the part well, but the film itself was oddly charmless, and I didn't feel Gadot and Pine had any chemistry. Pretty poor overall - at times generic, at times confused.

Pretty much my feelings exactly.

If it wasn't the fiirst female fronted superhero movie of recent times and arguably better than recent DC adaptations, I question whether it would be garnering all the accolades it has.

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SIP

#51
Surprised at the negative opinions to be honest. Saw it once, really liked it. Saw it a second time and liked it even more. Not a mess at all, good humoured and two excellent leads. Not to mention some standout action sequences. Looking forward to the blu ray.

TordelBack

Ah it is a bit of a mess. Starting with the [spoiler]unexplained sinking(?) ships at Themyscira, the way Diana is injured by a bullet but then heals but thereafter takes not one scratch, moving on to the self-sailing boat that arrives at a distinctly Hollywood London from (presumably) the Dodecanese after 'catching a lift', the bizarre no-man's land sequence where Our Heroes break through the lines to rescue some enslaved (?) villagers, massacre the troops stationed in this village just a few miles from German HQ, and stay for drinking and dancing because literally no-one seems bothered that they are behind enemy lines,, the truly terrible Ares design (and concept), Diana's ill-defined powers that seem to include flight and lightning by the end.[/spoiler].. It is indeed a bit of a mess.

BUT it is fun, positive, Wonder Woman and her purpose are awesome, action sequences may be the first slo-mo superhero fighting I've enjoyed, Robin Wright is brill, Chris Pine takes a passenger seat very nicely, Spud finds his mojo, so it all sums to a fine superhero flick.

Tiplodocus

I liked it and Mrs Tips liked it even more. Not brilliant, and apart from the titular character lacking a penis, I can't think of anything new it brought to the table.

I thought Gadot/Pine were both suitably swoony and did in fact show some chemistry.

Mrs Tips liked the speed up/ slow down bits because, and she's not a comic reader, she imagined it slows down on what would be the image on the page.

So back to basics seems to have given us the best of the DC bunch so far.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Greg M.

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 12 June, 2017, 08:14:22 AM
I can't think of anything new it brought to the table.

To me, this is a big part of the problem: it felt like a missed opportunity. The stuff that might have set it apart from other, similar movies, was only briefly touched on, and effectively sidelined for the less-interesting mythological stuff. Wonder Woman in the era of the Suffragettes – there's surely more mileage in that? I get that they wanted to create a contrast between Themyscira and "Man's World" but how about giving Diana some more women to interact with and inspire in the latter? How about the charisma-free Steve Trevor doesn't spend most of the film grabbing Diana and dragging her about everywhere? (I did like the bit where she makes it clear he doesn't get to tell her what to do, but I wanted more of that, and much earlier.) What about giving us a woman's take on men and their petty testosterone-fuelled bickering and need for war? (It's implicit, but it could have been delivered more powerfully.) If Diana had been a man from a secret island of men, would the film really have been that much different? Probably not, and more's the pity.

I'm not saying movies about female heroes have to be about the fact they're women, and not men, but for Wonder Woman, this is pretty much her raison d'etre - she is the archetypal female superhero. And in Gadot, they had a great bit of casting: someone I feel could have done justice to better material.

SIP

Not getting the allegations of a charisma-free Chris Pine. I feel like I must have seen a different film than some of the good people here. He was great in this!

Each to their own i appreciate, critical and, far more importantly, actual film goers opinion appears to be almost universally positive and I've yet to actually meet someone who didn't really enjoy it.

It was an entertaining, often exciting, often humorous, well cast, well directed, positive film. Just struggling to get on board with the majority of negatives highlighted here. I didn't find plot holes at all, I didn't find absurdity, and it all looked gorgeous.

It was a really good film, and I'll sign off on that.



Vicsage

A good move, but not great.  A great movie needs a great villain.  Ares was a very weak villain. 

SIP

#57
I would argue that a great movie certainly does not require a great villain. In fact there are a wealth of great movies with no villains at all. The real "villain" of the film was human nature where Ares played the role of the devil, whispering suggestions.

Supreme Pizza Of The DPRK

Quote from: SIP on 12 June, 2017, 01:06:37 PM
I would argue that a great movie certainly does not require a great villain. In fact there are a wealth of great movies with no villains at all.

Usual Suspects

TordelBack

Quote from: SIP on 12 June, 2017, 10:59:23 AM
Not getting the allegations of a charisma-free Chris Pine. I feel like I must have seen a different film than some of the good people here. He was great in this!

Agree with you there, I thought Pine (and Trevor) walked a fine line very nicely - he was an active, forceful, sympathetic hero, but ultimately he knew when and how to let the lady lead, and without too much prompting either.  Pine has been a solid (and generally improving) actor in everything I've seen him in, and I'm impressed that he was prepared to take the sidekick role here and do such a good job of it. 

I have to strongly disagree about one thing: Ares looked absolutely awful, a poorly designed CGI abomination with a Dr Robotnik face: after the stylishly-done account of his destruction of the Olympians, I was expecting something more... classical, or at least more subtle than just another Sauron. While I knew [spoiler]Thewlis[/spoiler] was the big baddie from the moment I saw him, I was actually pretty happy with the moment [spoiler]when Diana kills 'Ares' and nothing changes: the idea of Ares as a corrupting influence rather than a muscled bruiser was fine by me[/spoiler]. 

The seque from that concept into an ill-defined punch-up with a bargain-basement Magneto was the only real disappointment in the movie.  And what happened there anyway? What changed that Diana could [spoiler]suddenly fly and throw lightning about?  Was it just that she realised she was actually Ares' sister and thus not an Amazon but both goddess and god-killer and could 'access' these powers, or was it that she spared Dr Poison and thus grew into her role as an emissary of love and harmony?  Was she invulnerable to conventional harm all along?  If so, how come she was injured on Themiscyra? [/spoiler] I ask in a spirit of genuine enquiry, 'cos I didn't get it.

To pick up on one of Greg's points, I thought there was about as much 'Wonder Woman in the era of Suffragettes' as a superhero flick could carry - Diana's snappy interactions with Etta and the various men sold that quite well in a show-don't-tell way, I thought, their impact maybe slightly lessened by over-exposure in the trailers.