xxxix. Wonder Woman

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Runtime:
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Tagline:
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Writer(s):
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Director(s):
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Cast:
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Partly due to my lack of presence on the blogosphere, partly having so much on my mind I want to get down for my own benefit, this film has steered me back.

Back Story:
After all the hate that Man of Steel & BvS: Dawn of Justice have had (though not entirely undeserved), DC gave us Suicide Squad, their worst film by all accounts, doing neither justice to the characters or the medium of film for that matter. Stories of how there’s a good film out there, butchered on some table notwithstanding, the trollers and haters were having a field day, as the optimistic sons & daughters of Marthas worldwide hung their heads in shame, now putting all their hopes & dreams on the next pending DC film, conveniently touted as the underdog with few expectations.

Now, all this film had to do, was be average or slightly above it, to feed us some hope that there was a reinvention of the DCEU coming, give the fans at least the chance to say, the best of their films has only just arrived and better things are yet to follow.

It’s been great to see all the positive reviews come in after what seemed like a lacklustre effort by the marketers on this, compared to any of the other DC flicks anyway. I think all said and done, it’s no surprise this was achieved as soon as the media embargo was lifted and a stream of joyous excited reviews flooded the internet.

After the fact, I wonder now if was smart(er) marketing, learning from their previous mistakes of overselling & revealing too much. To date I can’t believe Doomsday (& Wonder Woman for that matter) had made the BvS trailer, it seemed desperate. This time, were they taking a strategic step back knowing the content itself will deliver, and if so, does this also shed light on their knowing that the others didn’t have enough going for them? Guess we’ll never really know unless there are convenient wiki leaks to back this theory. I digress — back to the film.

Front Story:
Having seen it, indeed it is the best of the lot thus far, no doubt about it, but it’s not enough to say that, for achieving that was going to be a relatively easy feat & well, the film was so much more. Now I know I’m supposed to yell it’s all about girl power yay but let’s set that aside, for the moment.

Here’s a superhero origin story that is neither a knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy, nor a fish out of water story of someone realising they could put their superhuman powers to good use*. It’s a story about fulfilling a purpose, the duty for which you exist, despite learning the ugliness of what you’re supposed to protect along the way. The internal conflict is unique & to match it the external conflict is more obviously unique too. This to me says, that on paper the concept already has freshness. Why they’ve held back the making of this is a mystery as good as any.

The film itself is whole bunch of fun, charm of the old, effects of the new, a symbiosis that’s been waiting to happen for a long while. I mean, once you’ve blown up all the planets & galaxies, it’s back to basics right? What else is there?

The Middle Bit
Now over to the girl power aspect of it. On a recent discussion panel, I’d heard a lot being said about the unfairness to women when it comes to roles, acting and otherwise & it is a sad state of affairs, but one comment I took away as the most productive amongst all the anger and outrage speeches, was the one that mentioned finding collaboration with men. Society, for better or worse, is what it is. Together there is a chance of making things better. That is a philosophy I can get on board with.

I don’t want to do any disservice to all the great male writers out there that have written fantastic female characters, but surely it’ll come to females more organically. The more they write, the more we get stronger more authentic female characters for actresses, the more they get, the more perspective we have out there. Many reviews for Wonder-Woman complimented that the camera looked at a woman differently. I agree. It was evident that having a female boss behind the camera will get you that.

For all the freshness that producers seek (or say they seek), it actually makes sense economically too for a film industry overall to expand its creative teams in ways that allow the most diversity.

The summary of that was: We need more women getting out there directing and writing. It’s not easy, no skill is, but we need you.

xxxix – #[imdblive:title] #DC currently has an IMDb rating of [imdblive:rating] with [imdblive:votes] votes.

*Superman deciding to conquer the planet rather than helping them against external threats, would make for an interesting story & who knows, perhaps that’s what Justice League could be about. The theory has been hinted.

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