The popcorn bucket reviews: Wonder Woman (2017)
When a movie sucks, it's extremely easy to write a review, same when it's fabulous.
Ideas flow one after another and it is a delight to analyze and write.
On the other hand, when a movie is meh!, it's not even worth writing anything about.
But, when a movie lurches from one side to the other between the churro and the movie, it takes a lot of work to write about it.
Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman does exactly that.
She goes from sensational scenes with perfectly acted dialogue to half-baked explanations and situations without any motive or reason.
The anger is that it is Wonder Woman, a character that has a lot of meaning and a specific weight of great importance in the world of superheroes. A character that, contrary to what has happened with Superman or Batman, who have been played by countless actors, had to spend almost 40 years for another actress to play the role of the Amazon, after Lynda Carter wore the emblematic gold, red and blue uniform in an outstanding way in the series that marked an entire generation.
Between retrograde Warner executives and a horde of troglodyte fans who see a threat in everything feminine, it took 40 years for Warner to decide to adapt the story of the Amazon to the cinema.
The truth is that Warner had no other choice. It's not like I decided to make Wonder Woman out of a conviction that it was the right thing to do. She had already burned all her male cartridges in an ugly way; Green Lantern: Spectacular failure, Superman Returns: total failure, Man of Steel: absolute destruction of an icon, Batman vs Superman, a headless disaster with a ridiculous resolution, Suicide Squad, an amorphous entity that is neither cinema nor narration , nor comic, but a kind of catalog of scenes stuck together with masking tape.
What else could they do but tell the story of Wonder Woman? whose debut unfortunately had to take place in that 2016 debacle.
This is how we meet Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman from 2017.
First I will have to say that I had to watch it twice to take it in.
The truth is that the first time I fell asleep.
I assumed that my torpor was the result of a very heavy week of work, so I gave it a second chance.
The second time I didn't fall asleep, so when I was a little more awake I found myself with a rather poorly written script.
The truth is that the script is saved from being a complete disaster because there are themes that are interwoven into the plot that are very important and that make them resonate in a way that more or less one can remember and internalize, however, I think it is about of giving too many lessons at the same time. Then I complain that the movies don't have a clear message, but in this case it has too many; and the bad thing is that because there are so many, they don't end up being clear either.
Sometimes it seems that the central theme is the conviction to your beliefs, then the resistance that a woman must have to break through in the world of men, then the danger of dogmatic beliefs, then the will to do what is right, then the power of "girl power" and finally the power of love." Its the power of love". We just missed Marty Mcfly on his skateboard.
These themes enter, leave, rise, fall and end up being diluted in an overly complicated script, which does not end up strengthening any of his teachings.
But let's start at the beginning. Let the spoilers begin.
It all starts with little Diana wanting to learn to fight and her mother who won't let her. "It must be for a reason," says the incredulous movie buff who still trusts that Zack Snyder knows how to tell stories.
"Surely Hypolita has a reason for wanting to protect Diana; a dark secret that she must hide at all costs." Hypolita then tells little Diana how it was that Zeus grabbed the bun with Ares and as a last resort, he left with the Amazons a very sharp weapon to be used against Ares if he returned; a sword of omens that was not meant to be wielded by Diana. "What would happen," wonders the avid comics reader, "if Diana came to fight with that sword?"
Immediately afterwards, the goading aunt enters the scene, who, knowing the potential that the little Amazon has, begins to secretly train her." Here is a challenge to Hypolita's authority, that means that Antiope, played by a Robin Wright who she looks, exactly how an Amazon should look, she knows something and decides to start her little niece's training in secret."
On an island where there are only female warriors, the queen doesn't want her daughter to learn to fight. "There must be a reason."
Hypolita finally discovers the sneaky training and then changes her mind. "How, that easy? Yes that easy."
"And the dark secret that forced the queen to protect her daughter?"
"By Zeus, don't you know that the main objective of mothers is to forbid anything to their children for no reason? Oh yes, right. Well let's continue."
Hypolita tells Antiope that if she is to train Diana, she must do so ruthlessly so that she becomes the greatest of all Amazon warriors. Ok, so we go from don't train her at all, to make her sweat blood. But surely Hypolita will have a reason. Well, now I'm starting to see the pattern, maybe the reasons aren't that important. Who wrote the story? Oh yes Snyder. Damn! This is starting to sound like we can stop looking for motivations because in one of them Hypolita's maiden name is Martha.
Time passes and Diana grows up to be a lovely but somewhat undernourished Amazon who looks skinny next to her battle sisters. Something like the ugly duckling or Gal Gadot that if she is beautiful but it was never a suitable choice for my taste.
Gal Gadot did what he could and brought the character forward. She is charismatic and very pretty but I think she doesn't pass from there.
The movie continues and Hypolita approaches to witness Diana's newly acquired war skills and suddenly, without her knowing and without anyone understanding why, Diana crosses her bracelets, which by the way, we don't know why they are special, or even even if they are special since all the other amazons also carry them, and a loud explosion comes out of them. With the explosion, Antiope is thrown into the air before Hypolita's defiant look of I told you so.
Diana is much more powerful than anyone ever expected, except for her mother, who is the only one who knows the whole truth. So maybe there is a secret! Yes of course.
Ashamed of her tremendous power, because of course it was her fault to protect herself from the sword blow her aunt unleashed on her, Diana goes to admire the horizon confused and ashamed who knows why.
Immediately after, in the best style of Pocahontas vs. The Little Mermaid, Diana sees how Captain Kirk crashes into the sea in the distance.
Diana pulls Kirk out of the water and when they are in the middle of "I want to be part of your world", they realize that the Klingons followed Kirk. When I say Klingons it is to make it more exciting because for a change the bad guys in the movie are the Germans.
And since the energy field that surrounds Themyscira was bought by the Amazons from the Gungans, any neighbor's son can cross it and the Germans get into the kitchen, which naturally means that the Amazons must defend their island. What you don't know, a trashy critic, is that it wasn't a protective field, it was just a cover that kept the island hidden. Ah ok sorry, I said if you have the power of the gods on your side after once a deflecting energy field, right?
Poor Patty Jenkins, from spending so much time with Snyder it was inevitable that she contracted a strong case of CGItitis and a very virulent case of camaralentitis.
Slow motion, until Snyder discovered it, was used to emphasize certain details within an action sequence, not for the entire damn sequence.
All movements, jumps, shots, punches, kicks, they are all in slow motion. Ok, no way.
In slow motion, Antiope realizes that Diana is in the drool and that a German is going to blow her nose. In slow motion, she runs, and in slow motion, she screams and lunges in slow motion to stop the bullet that goes too: slow motion!
Diana kneels next to her dying aunt and manages to hear her last words. "Go Diana go." Where does Diana wonder along with a whole room of spectating moviegoers? Who knows?
Immediately afterwards, they interrogate Kirk using the lasso of truth, the first weapon that describes its origin and explains that the world is involved in a terrible world war.
After hearing Kirk's account, Diana is left in no doubt that Ares has returned and that the war is a result of his nefarious influence on humans. Hypolita is still in denial. Why? Who knows.
At this point in the film I already begin to need explanations because otherwise I begin to suffer from my post-episode 1 syndrome. It would have been great if they had explained to me why Hypolita lived in total denial, especially since the Amazons had been created with the ex professed to remind humanity of its virtues. Well no, there is no explanation and simply and simply the queen continues in the foolishness that they do not have a candle at the funeral and that if Diana decides to leave she will never be able to return. For what reason? So, just because.
Diana goes to look for the sword of omens and in the process discovers that she has super strength which takes her completely by surprise like when Superman in Man of Steel is taken by surprise that she can fly because it is logical that in 30 years they would never have run into his superpowers.
But let's not bring in Kal-el, this mess that is only Diana Prince.
Finally, here appears one of the isolated phrases of the film that have a positive message and that are what I managed to rescue from this rather scattered script.
Diana finally confronts her mother and tells her that if she stayed on the island doing nothing what kind of person would she become.
I liked that.
So armed with the Sword of Virtue and the Shield of Truth, Diana embarks with Kirk on Jack Sparrow's speedboat, because Zeuz frees us from using an invisible jet.
Super Elena Anaya. Woman!
By the way, Kirk has blown up Dr. Isabel Maru's notes, where he has written all the secrets of a new weapon, a super gas more cannon than mustard gas. Kirk has a self-imposed mission to take them to the English high command, because he is sure that it can stop the war.
Which reminds me that absolutely no one remembers that Elena Anaya appears in this movie. What a waste of an actress and a character, even worse than Captain Phasma!
I have never seen an Anaya movie where she doesn't feel like it and this is no exception. Her performance added interest to a timidly written character who had so much potential and slowly fades away until there is absolutely nothing going on with her.
Here begins the second act of the film, which for me is the most disappointing, since it is nothing more than a constant repetition of the same gag over and over again. Diana stumbles upon something that baffles her from the world of men and Kirk explains how it works over and over and over again.
At first it's funny but after seeing the same gag two or three times, the truth tires.
This is where it seems that the theme is going to be one of gender, however the director never takes responsibility and makes Diana run into men who are too liberal and extremely cool for the time.
She shyly proposes the scene in the war room where the surprise and indignation of the soldiers at seeing a woman among them must have been much greater.
Now we change the topic to: You can't help everyone in a war.
I think that this part was the one that I liked the most, because for a superhero movie, I think it managed to communicate the message of the horrors of war in a graphically clear way.
I would have liked the script to have focused on this theme and strengthened it with a scene in which we would have seen Diana really trying to help people and how in the confusion of the battle she ends up making things worse. I would have liked that Hypolita's fear could have been understood here with a couple of scenes showing why she wanted to protect Diana from the horrors of war and that her mother's words echoed in her head.
None of this happens and on the contrary, Kirk always manages to convince her that nothing can be done, until she gets fed up with it and decides to face the German machine guns alone.
This is the only scene that I really hated in the movie.
The abuse of slow motion along with the absurd situation of all the German soldiers shooting only and exclusively at his shield, made this sequence pitiful to watch. Holy obvious distractions Batman!
On the other hand, I realized how important it is to make superhero objects have their peak moment in the movies.
The Batmobile doesn't appear in Batman '89 until after the first half of the movie and appears in a scene designed to make his entrance spectacular.
In this case, Patty Jenkins did not set aside an exclusive scene for us to get excited about the presentation of Diana's bracelets. She would have been delighted that she used them for the first time when she defended Steve in the alley and that we would all have been surprised there.
But no, by then we've seen them do all sorts of things without any explanation as to why they're capable of doing everything they do and by the time he uses them again in the battlefield sequence, not all of the slow motion of the world makes them look relevant or parents.
The theme of the film radically changes again and now becomes something like the distrust of humans towards super heroes. The thing is that Kirk doesn't believe Diana's story that Ares is the only one responsible for the war and he's just giving her the plane.
Again, he would have been cool that this would have been the central theme of the movie and that all the sub-themes would reinforce this idea, but no, this is one more sub-theme of the collection.
Kirk has the plan apart from him to end the war and just drives Diana crazy with his wave that Ares is the only one responsible for everything.
The scene of the town bombarded with mustard gas is only relevant if we take the issue of trust between them as the main one. Diana is disappointed that even though she has been honest with Kirk he never believed her and because of this he dares to stop her when she is about to pick on Danny Huston.
Oh by the way poor Danny Huston, they gave him the role of the blandest baddie since Specter's Blofeld.
General Perlenbacher all he wants is for the war to continue for...
So that?
Why would Germany win?
Not that it was the Confederations Cup.
Too bad, for a change a villain without interesting reasons.
Ok, so we're left with Diana being disappointed in Kirk because she didn't believe the whole Ares thing and because he stopped her from killing General Perlenbacher when he had the chance, he bombed the little town they just saved, which could have been avoided.
All as if Diana hadn't been able to give the Kirk a good push and jumped on the general to kill him.
What a bad scene.
Diana gets angry and goes her own way to find Perlenbacher while Kirk stays with Captain America's team to try to stop the mustard gas shipment and end the war.
Here begins the third act in which we find the classic final battle scene in which all the secrets of the plot are revealed between explosions and guamazos.
Diana finds Perlenbacher and in the easiest fight in the history of superhero movies, she kills him to discover that even though she has killed Ares, god of war, the war continues.
Here one thinks: of course Kirk was right, war arises from human nature not from inspiration from the god of war, which puts Diana in a position of total uneasiness because she has just seen her beliefs crumble.
But wait a minute.
Who is inside the surveillance booth.
That voice sounds familiar to me.
But if it is Professor Remus Lupine who until now had been on the side of the good guys.
Of course now I understand everything.
We continue in the foolishness of Hollywood to use all the tricks of the cinema.
Now it is the turn of the unexpected drawer turn.
Remus Lupine is Ares, who naturally planned everything carefully in the Darth Sidious style, meaning without any sense.
What was Ares's original plan in sponsoring Captain Kirk and his A-team's mission?
Show Diana the horrors of war so that she would be disappointed in humanity?
But she believed that all of this was Ares's fault and not humanity's.
And when he killed General Perlenbacher believing it to be Ares and the war didn't stop, then he thought that indeed it was all humanity's fault, but only until then, which means that Ares knew that Diana was confused and that at that moment she believed that he was the general.
But now we see again that Ares is indeed responsible even though he says no.
What a beautiful story so well thought out and so well written, don't you think?
And although the "Martha" factor was not so serious in this film, it did make an appearance.
Although they want to corkscrew us with the idea that Diana fell in love with Kirk, the director never reinforces this idea, she just falls in love because.
Because the guy is cool and he's handsome.
There was never a scene where Diana fell head over heels in love with him because of any of his actions or his ideas. We never see that progression. In fact the scene where they spend the night together, there is no element to even argue that there is a strong physical attraction between them. From Kirk to Diana obviously nothing needs to be reinforced but for the other side yes.
So when Diana comes out with the power of love is what she believes in, for me it was as if Diana had told Ares: our mother's name is Martha.
Never in the whole movie was the theme love and suddenly it is.
There was never a narrative construction towards that resolution. It sounds familiar. Coff Man of Steel, Coff Batman vs Superman Coff ,coff!
The ending is lousy.
Without any explanation, Diana seizes Ares's energy through his multifunctional bracelets and redirects the lightning, which naturally, since it is already charged with the power of love, ends up destroying the villain.
In the best style of the Cariñositos!
Hero movies should preferably tell a story of growth and overcoming.
Ironman does it, Captain America too, Batman Begins not to mention, Thor, the Spider-Man. Even Deadpool learns something.
What does Diana learn?
She from the beginning trusted humanity.
What problem does she overcome?
We were never presented with any conflict, any confusion that she might have that she had to overcome.
She was determined from the beginning to kill Ares and that is exactly what she does in the end.
In the process, she says she falls in love with her and that allows her to realize that humanity is cool, but she already knew that from the beginning.
No pos no.
oh! by the way.
Why does Kirk commit suicide?
Oh yes, because it is another of the Hollywood formulas and it had to be put into Wilson.
It is not going to be the bad one and by not putting it in, the collection of proven formulas will be incomplete.
Wonder Woman was my last hope.
The film has something that makes her see more than she really is.
I think it's the very good performance of all the actors in it.
They are all very charismatic actors, even Danny Huston and Elena Anaya making the villains look good with much more substance than they actually gave them.
That combined with several phrases that are very quotable because they are good ethical advice, make it seem like a better movie than it is.
The director is saved a bit because, when the script is bad, there is little a director can do to save the tape, even so Patty Jenkins abuses slow motion and the special effects were rendered half an hour before the premiere.
Have the Justice League go see Snyder's mom.
I give up.
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