Wonder Woman (1974): The Television Movie

WONDER WOMAN: THE TELEVISION MOVIE

Film and television adaptations of Wonder Woman have been hit-and-miss. The 2017 film was successful critically and commercially. The 2020 sequel, however, was neither. On television, the 1975-1979 Lynda Carter series and its theme are still fondly remembered. The 2011 attempted reboot on the other hand was such a disaster that not only was it not picked up for series, but the pilot was also never aired. In the various attempted and realized adaptations, people forget that the year before Carter donned her satin tights, another Wonder Woman television series was planned. Wonder Woman is such a bizarre project that one should watch it only to marvel at how anyone in front or behind the camera thought that any of it was good. 

A television movie meant as a test pilot, Wonder Woman stars Cathy Lee Crosby as Diana Prince. She is an Amazonian who has made the great sacrifice to leave Paradise Island to go to the world of men, where there is evil at work. A notorious master criminal named Abner Smith has uncovered the identity of thirty-nine covert agents and will sell them to the highest bidder, putting all of them at risk. He will give the names back to the U.S. for $15 million, with them having three days to meet his ransom. While head spook Steve Trevor (Kaz Garas) has various men working on the case, he needs his secretary Diana Prince to go to France for a "dental appointment".

Once there, everyone knows that she is super-spy Wonder Woman. That includes Abner Smith's chief henchman George (Andrew Prine), who has both murderous and erotic designs on our heroine. She thwarts these assassination attempts with surprising agility and intelligence. No number of hired assassins or snakes sent to her various hotel rooms will stop Diana from pursuing Abner Smith. 

The ransom is agreed to be paid, as time is running short. It is an attempted trap to get Abner Smith to finally reveal himself, which he gladly does so when he captures Wonder Woman. The notorious Abner Smith (Ricardo Montalban) is charming and elegant. He also does not want Diana killed. George, already bitter that he has been rebuffed, chafes at the directive. However, George has an ace up his sleeve: renegade Amazonian Anhjayla (Anitra Ford), who has joined forces with George. Has Wonder Woman met her match? Will Abner Smith get away? 

The curious thing about Wonder Woman is, that apart from her origins on Paradise Island, there is absolutely nothing special or powerful about Diana Prince. Screenwriter John D.F. Black and director Vincent McEveety failed on every level to make Wonder Woman interesting. They decided that Diana had no great powers. Instead, she was in many ways almost ordinary. Moreover, a lot of Wonder Woman makes no sense.

Everyone working for Abner Smith knows who WW is, yet no one at the agency did. The various efforts to assassinate Diana range from bizarre to downright laughable. A group of men in one scene enter a moving elevator from above, and she is able to defeat them so easily that one thinks the scene is pretty pointless. Another time, a snake is sent to her hotel room. I will not diminish the threat of a potentially venomous snake. I will, however, question why Wonder Woman would open a box sent to her room so casually. I also have doubts on whether or not you can remove this threat by having Room Service send over a dish of milk.

I will also question why Abner Smith did not simply kill her when she goes into an obvious trap at a rented mansion. Is it even worth bothering at this point to wonder why "Abner Smith" seems such a ludicrous name for a master criminal? I wonder if George ever called him "Lil' Abner" behind his back.

Perhaps I can begrudgingly say that there is one semi-good moment of wit. When George and Diana are having dinner, George openly says, "Let me make love to you". Diana asks why. After pointing out his own virtues, Diana replies, "You misunderstood me. I didn't mean why should you want to. I meant why should I?". 

However, in all other respects Wonder Woman is oddball. Apparently, Abner Smith's plan was to kill Wonder Woman by trapping her in a sealed room and sending multicolored lava to smother her. This is after she has to follow a burro to find Abner Smith's hideout. A burro that Abner Smith sent Steve Trevor. A burro who is released with the ransom money by using the words, "Corras rapido, por favor", which translates from Spanish as, "Run fast, please". 

We never get an explanation as to who Anhjayla is, or how she managed to hook up with George (interpret that any way that you wish). She and Diana have a battle of javelins that essentially ends in a draw. "You know as well as I do that we will face each other again", Anhjayla tells her frenemy. I figure that was a tease for the hoped-for television series. We will never see this promised confrontation.

All the better, as Wonder Woman has some woeful acting. For most of Wonder Woman, Ricardo Montalban is deliberately kept off screen, with only his hands and voice to appear on camera. He's hamming it up for all its worth, delighting in the chance to be cartoonish. He was, I think, fully aware that Wonder Woman was not a pilot for a series but camp, silly and illogical. Pity that no one else got the memo. 

Former tennis pro Cathy Lee Crosby, I think, did the best that she could with the material. However, there was very little to show that she could have carried a full series. She as at times blank and wooden as Diana Prince. Fortunately for her, she recovered from this error when she later cohosted the television docuseries That's Incredible! but here she could not communicate much. Again, to be fair, Black's script and McEveety's directing were not helpful. 

Everyone else save Montalban gave a bad performance. Garas' Steve had little to do. Jordan Rhodes, who played the smitten agent Bob, was in one scene and added nothing to even a tease for a future romance or at least comic flirtation. Andrew Prine as George was done in not just by his overall bad performance. George is also a rather repulsive man. I get that as a male chauvinist pig he was meant as the opposite of Diana's enlightened woman. However, he was lousy no matter whom he interacted with. Anitra Ford's Anhjayla, like Crosby, I think tried to make this seem interesting. 

I think Wonder Woman, if seen at all, will be as a curiosity, a reflection of its time with "women's lib" becoming more dominant. This is not a good version of the superheroine, and it is good that they opted against a series which would have flopped. You've come a long way, baby, but when it comes to Wonder Woman, you had a little more way to go.

2/10

Wonder Woman 1984: A Review

 WONDER WOMAN 1984

In 2017, I was wildly impressed with Wonder Woman. I was so impressed I named it the Best Film of the Year. I thrilled to its mix of action, fantasy, adventure and romance. After a few unfortunate delays due to the COVID pandemic/panic, we have at last the sequel Wonder Woman 1984. 

It won't make my Ten Best, though perhaps I'm too charitable to place it among the Ten Worst.

It is 1984 and Diana Prince aka Woman Woman (Gal Gadot) is still pining for her long-lost love Steve Trevor. Now working at the Smithsonian, she moonlights as a crimefighter. One of those crimes at a mall jewelry store leads to the discovery of an object with a Latin inscription. New gemologist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) is tasked to catalog the stolen cache.

That object has the power to grant whoever holds it their great wish. Unbeknownst to them, Barbara and Diana make wishes in a somewhat insincere manner: Barbara to be like Diana, and we find out later, Diana to be reunited with Steve (Chris Pine). However, also aware of the object is fraudulent oil tycoon Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal). He wishes to literally be the object, able to grant wishes but at a cost to whomever makes the wish.

As Maxwell now finds himself gaining more power, Diana starts losing hers due to the wish carrying that secret cost. The only way to return things to normal is to renounce the wish, but no one wants to despite the growing chaos. It's "the Monkey Paw effect" as Steve points out. It is up to Diana/Wonder Woman to take that first step, and then to fight against Maxwell and Barbara (now transformed into Cheetah) to stop the ultimate destruction.

It's a curious thing that twice in my notes, I referred to Wonder Woman 1984 as having "Superman III vibes". By that I mean that things look a bit cartoonish, interested more in laughs than straightforward storytelling. There just seemed to be no enthusiasm for anything and about anything.

It is a poor sign for me that at what is meant to be a climactic battle I was fighting to stay awake. 

One major issue is length: the film is over two-and-a-half hours long, and director Patty Jenkins (cowriting with Geoff Johns and Dave Callahan) should have cut out well over half to a full hour out of this. The opening Themyscira sequence is a punishing 11 minutes long and add the mall jewelry store robbery and we're close to half hour into this story without anything actually happening. There's this sluggishness which drags throughout Wonder Woman 1984 that makes things feel even longer. 

It takes over half an hour for Diana, Barbara and Maxwell to share the screen, and close to an hour before Steve shows up. How he turns up is where we go for some unnecessary comedy bits about 80s fashions and the wonders of the post-World War I world Steve never lived to see. Inserting Steve Trevor into Wonder Woman 1984 by the most oddball of ways seems so irrelevant to anything.

About the only really remarkable thing is Chris Pine's lack of vanity of allowing his greying hair to be seen.

I can't say anything particularly good about any of the performances. Gadot looks bored and blank, reciting her lines with apparently no enthusiasm. Wiig was surprisingly restrained as Barbara, the nebbish who now has powers. Perhaps that was to counter Pascal, whose manic manner seemed at times bordering on farce. I'll cut him some slack only because Maxwell was saddled with a "motive" for his evil: keeping his son Alistair (Lucian Perez). Why water down the villain by trying to show his softer side? 

That is such a cliché, and not a particularly good one or good use of it here.

Moments that want to play into being magical, such as Diana turning the stolen airplane invisible or flying (whether through Independence Day fireworks show or on her own as apparently Wonder Woman can practically fly a la Superman) looked less magical and duller. 

As a film set in the mid-1980s, you can trust that Wonder Woman 1984 would have some shoutouts to those wacky times: bad Reagan impersonators, the clothes, even a cameo mid-credits that seemed almost irritating versus fun. It didn't add anything other than slight nostalgia porn, but it didn't make the film any better.

I think I might have hit on the big issue with Wonder Woman 1984: it wasn't fun. It wasn't anything really. There's no real story here. Everyone looks pretty bored. You wait for something to happen. There's no enthusiasm, no sense of adventure or joy here. 

Wonder Woman 1984 isn't terrible. It just isn't anything. 

DECISION: D+

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women: A Review

PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN

Truth, I'm told, is sometimes stranger than fiction.  Just like few could have imagined the creation of Winnie-the-Pooh was a horror story, few could also have imagined the creation of Wonder Woman was an origin story filled with S&M and pretensions of intellectualism.  Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is at times quite beautiful, but it is also at times almost demented and choppy with 'characters' who come across as bordering on bonkers.

Using the framing device of an interrogation in 1945 by Josette Frank (Connie Britton), director of the Child Study Association of America, Professor William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans) is being questioned about how his superhero Wonder Woman came to be, along with the suggestions of bondage and lesbianism can be interpreted.  Marston defends his creation and openly states that he sees Wonder Woman as a vehicle for propaganda, refusing to make apologies or excuses for the not-quite-subtle or overt sexual nature of the comics.

Marston started out in the film as a well-respected professor of psychology at Harvard's sister college Radcliffe while his equally if not superior wife Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) is continuously denied a Ph.D. from Harvard because she is a woman.  Into their lives comes Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcoate), who is extremely attractive. Our randy Professor Marston is instantly attracted to the pretty and engaged coed, and Mrs. Marston knows that.

Fortunately, their superior intelligence allows them some leeway into matters of the heart and groins, so Olive can serve as their lab assistant as they work to perfect a lie detector test.  It isn't long before libidos start going off all over the place, as Will gets a hard-on for Olive, while Olive gets her jollies from Elizabeth.  Elizabeth, for her part, is unsure about any attraction to her husband's new obsession, but eventually they all start falling into bed with each other.

Somehow, all this canoodling is met with a dim view at Radcliffe, and the threesome find themselves out in the cold, with Olive now knocked up, presumably by William, who also has children with his wife along with their shared mistress.  Things look dim, until William meets up with Charles Guyette (J.J. Feild), a suave Frenchman who has a sideline showcasing a little sadomasochism.  Our good professor is intrigued by the possibilities, and like the strong independent women they are, both Olive and Elizabeth quickly fall in line with all this kink.

Eventually, Marston comes up with 'Suprema the Wonder Woman' and pitches the idea to various comics, where it is picked up after simplifying things to just 'Wonder Woman'.  Unfortunately, a good neighbor accidentally walks in during a little menage a trois, causing a mini-scandal.  Olive is exiled for the sake of propriety, but after William discovers he is dying of cancer he engineers a reconciliation.

After his death, the two women live together for the next 38 years, and their shared creation becomes an icon.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women may stick close to the reality of this unorthodox group, but it does one type of disservice to the Marstons and Olive Byrne.  It makes them all extremely unpleasant people: smug, generally unlikable and almost arrogant in their sense of moral and intellectual superiority.  Professor William Marston comes off the worst, especially when we go to the 'present' or near-present of his smoke-filled interrogation, which appears to be taking place in an abandoned building.

Every time he spouts off about how his creation is meant to inspire young boys to submit to strong women, how Wonder Woman is a vehicle to promote his own theories, how unapologetic he is by the overt shout-out to bondage in a medium targeted primarily at children, he comes across less as a pioneering 'woke' male feminist and more as a pompous ass/ass-freak.  The film, rather than making him the hero it wants us to see him as, turns him into someone who sees himself above 'morality'.

In an odd sense, William Moulton Marston seems a prototype of all people, Ayn Rand, who had similar ideas about sex: she having a long-term affair with a young man with the 'consent' of her husband.  Only difference is that Frank O'Connor, Miss Rand's long-suffering husband, didn't share in the hijinks.

Also odd is how the film made the women, in their own way, subservient to Marston.  Granted, this is I figure how they wanted it and lived their lives, but for every time Elizabeth raised any objections whether to his dalliances or how irrational it looked to outsiders, eventually she gave in.  "When are going to stop justifying the whims of your cock with science?" Elizabeth shouts at William when he has Olive literally tied up.  That is as far as she ever got to telling her kinky husband off, but soon enough Elizabeth found the joys of rope.

Again, I figure this is how the three of them lived their lives, but it is hard to accept that Elizabeth and Olive were the inspirations for our noble Amazon warrior princess when they seem to in real life submit to the sexual desires of the man who does them both.

It may be truth, but it does weaken them and make the case that far from being strong, they submitted to the whims of Marston's cock.

At times, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women was a little too on-the-nose visually.  When they finally gave in to their carnal passions it was not exactly a full menage a trois in that the three of them weren't going at it simultaneously, but as Olive and Elizabeth took turns on William and he would watch them in turn, writer/director Angela Robinson made it look sublime. When we see Olive clad in her Amazonian garb, the shout-out to the future Diana Prince again is a little too obvious.

I cannot find fault with the performances, if we are meant to think through Luke Evans that Marston was a slightly pompous sex freak or that Heathcote's Olive was a surprisingly weak woman.  Hall as Elizabeth, however, was slightly different.  She was allowed some range as the occasional voice of reason who did have a sense that their life together was not conventional versus Marston and Olive who appeared to think there was nothing even remotely strange in their collective goings-on.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is at times quite luscious, which I figure applies to Evans, Hall and Heathcote as well.  Perhaps a little more time on the actual creation of Wonder Woman and a little less on the sex-romps of this curious trio might have helped the film.  Despite everyone's best efforts, you leave the film thinking this group is shockingly self-absorbed in their sense of superiority sexually, mentally and morally and frankly a little nutty.

William M. Marston: 1893-1947
Elizabeth Marston: 1893-1993
Olive Byrne: 1904-1990

DECISION: C-

Justice League: A Review (Review #985)

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Justice League is mercifully not a disaster. It certainly isn't as frightfully awful as its predecessor, Batman vs. Superman: Yawn of Justice. That Justice League is not a garish nightmare should not be taken as an endorsement. Justice League is still a bad movie, especially given that it really could have been more.  Justice League is really nothing.

A long, massive nothing.

Superman is dead, and this is something the film goes on and on about.  Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) believes that there is an impending invasion from somewhere, so he starts looking for the various 'superheroes' he's been tracking down.  He is reluctant to contact Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), I think in part because he is attracted to her.  However, after receiving a secret notice from her Amazon sisters, she believes that the war is 'already here'.

With that, both begin searching for the others, with varying degrees of success.  Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa) has no interest.  Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller) eagerly jumps in.  Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher) is reluctant but ultimately joins.

They have to do battle with Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds), a megalomaniac alien bent on world conquest.  In order to do that, he has to recover the three Mother Boxes that were left on Earth the last time he tried to conquer the planet.  A united force of Amazons, Atlantians, and Men put aside their differences to defeat him and took a separate box to protect.  In remarkably short order Steppenwolf takes the first two from the Amazons and the Atlantians (the first on Themyscira/Paradise Island, the second in Atlantis).  The Mother Box that Man hid is a little harder to find, but Cyborg knows where it is.  He should, as it is the reason he has become part-man, part-machine.

With this third Mother Box, Batman pushes to bring back Superman from the dead.  Wonder Woman and to a lesser degree Aquaman are opposed, but they need him both for his strength and to be the symbol of hope that the world needs.  With that, we get everyone to perform some weird science and Superman (Henry Cavill) comes back to life.  However, he is unsteady and attacks everyone, until Lois Lane (Amy Adams) comes to settle him down.

While Clark is off with Lois getting settled back among the living, Steppenwolf and his Minions are in Russia somewhere getting ready to conquer the world.  They can do this because the Mother Box used to perform a Lazarus act was essentially left out there for him to pick up.

Now all our superheroes must do battle with Steppenwolf to save the world.

In a mid-credit scene, The Flash and Superman race to see who gets to the Pacific first, and in the post-credit scene, Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) has escaped and on his yacht, gets a "Mr. Wilson" to think about forming a league of their own.

Not being the most familiar of people with DC lore, I figure this is the Legion of Doom.

There's a lot to say with regards to Justice League, but at the top of the list is just how misguided it all is.  None of the DC Extended Universe films have been good save Wonder Woman, and I simply don't understand why the production team insists on piling on so much and think the product is good.

I think one of the primary reasons Justice League is bad is because of its antagonist. Steppenwolf is a disaster of a villain.  His motivations are boring (world conquest), his methods of battle are ridiculous (he managed to bring down both the Amazons and Atlantians with nary a fight, especially the latter).  In fact, I found Steppenwolf to be quite funny versus menacing, with poor visual effects to create this unimpressive villain.

As a side note, I know many people have gone on about how Cavill's upper lip looked bizarre and unnatural, the result of having to digitally remove a mustache he had for another film that he was ordered not to shave off.  Apart from the opening scene where Superman looks like The Joker, I don't think this was such a big deal.

Despite how often we were told how great the stakes were, we never felt that they were.

It was all so remote, so distant, disinterested.  I never cared enough about the fate of this world to be on the edge of my seat.

Part of that may be due to the actual script, or at least what ended up on film.  When the Amazons, Atlantians, Men, and even quick glimpses of the Green Lantern Corps were shown battling Steppenwolf and his demons, I asked when did Justice League turn into Lord of the Rings.

Much has been made of how director Zack Snyder, forced to leave the production due to a terrible family tragedy, was replaced by Joss Whedon, more versed in balancing action and comedy.  At times you can almost pick scenes with a lighter touch, yet they didn't melt into a cohesive whole.  Perhaps it would have been impossible to mesh them, but there were moments that sounded bizarre.

Of particular note is when Barry is seeing his father Henry (Billy Crudup) in prison and is taken away.  Henry tells his son something, but the audience wasn't sure what exactly he said.  Some in the audience asked, "Did (Henry) tell (Barry), 'Don't be gay?'". 

Despite the film's constant efforts, none of the action sequences expect perhaps, perhaps the first one featuring Wonder Woman was remotely interesting.  They may have been big, they may have been long, but they were boring.  I confess to fighting off sleep while watching the Steppenwolf/Justice League confrontation in Mother Russia.

Was that why Steppenwolf picked Russia to have "The Unity" of the Mother Boxes?

It is clear Justice League was woefully misguided by everyone concerned: the writers and directors and producers.  I don't know how much of a spoiler Superman returning can be when Cavill is listed second in the credits. Again, for how often the film goes on about how Superman was this great symbol of hope and how crime has gone rampant because everyone thought he was dead, the film never made the case for why he should have been brought back.

When he was, we see that the film again shows what Everybody Knows: Henry Cavill is a breathtakingly beautiful man, but he simply cannot act.   He was great when he just stood there, giving everyone a chance to marvel at his face and body (save for the upper lip), but when he was tasked to speak, Cavill again showed how dead and wooden he is.  I remain convinced Cavill's role in Justice League and Yawn of Justice is due to the recognition that he simply cannot act and the less he's given to say, the better for all.

I frankly don't see what others do with regards to Momoa, who to be fair had a semi-good moment when he inadvertently admitted fear, but it isn't enough for me to want to see a separate Aquaman movie.  Affleck too showed he was all wrong for Batman, the scene where he's trying to rally the troops to resurrect Supes being a bit of unconvincing acting.

To my surprise, Miller was good as the eager young Barry, though the quippy nature of his role soon wore thin.  He was meant to be the comic relief, but after a while his rapid-fire banter and nervous 'I'm just a kid' shtick grew tiresome.  After rescuing some random Russians put in there to heighten the danger (I think), he nervously waves goodbye and says "Dostoevsky", which I figure was his way of trying to say 'Das vadanya'.  Thin line between goofy and idiot. 

I can't say much about Fisher because he had so little to work with.

Again, the standout continues to be Gadot, who was commanding and kind as Wonder Woman.  Given how powerful both Gadot and Wonder Woman were, it's unfortunate how she was at times reduced to eye candy.  Twice we saw shots that accentuated Diana's derriere and twice the men expressed a sexual interest in our Amazonian Princess.  So much for female empowerment.

It's to where Adams, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth and J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon weren't even needed and there just for dressing.  I was more involved with the fact that I recognized Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen from the original Christopher Reeve Superman films) in a cameo than I was in Adams, whom I think is the worst Lois Lane ever (not a slam on Adams as an actress, but a slam at how she was wrong for the part and has been ill-served by the various scripts in this Extended Universe).

Justice League is only mildly bad.  It isn't nearly as horrendous as Suicide Squad, or Yawn of Justice, or Man of Steel.  That is not an endorsement of Justice League.  That is a tragedy.

Justice is denied.

DECISION: C-

Wonder Woman: A Review

WONDER WOMAN

The DC Extended Universe has had a bad, but oh so bad run.  You've had Man of Steel kick it off with a dull, somber tale.  Suicide Squad reveled in its gruesomeness, and the less said about Yawn of Justice the better. 

It is therefore almost shocking that Wonder Woman, the fourth stab to get DC to come close to its archrival Marvel, finally gets it right.  Suffice to say the reason is that Wonder Woman did something none of the other DC Extended Universe films did: it was fun, it balanced action, comedy, romance, drama and fantasy well, and it gave us someone we actually care about.

On Themyscira, a hidden island full of Amazons, there is one child: a girl named Diana.  She yearns to train to be a warrior like her aunt, General Antiope (Robin Wright), but her mother, Queen Hyppolita (Connie Nielsen) is strongly opposed to it.  Eventually, as Diana (Gal Gadot) grows, Hyppolita concedes.  Diana proves herself to be good but one who needs much to learn, especially with a great secret that the other Amazons keep from her.

The Amazons were tasked by Zeus before the fall of the gods to be defenders of his creation, Man, which has been corrupted by Ares, God of War, who has hated Man from the beginning.  Ares has disappeared, but the Amazons believe he will return to seek his final vengeance.  Just as Diana is about to discover her true strength as a warrior princess, enter one Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).  His plane manages to get past the protective shield of Themyscira and crash onto the water.  Diana rescues him, only to find that the German military has been following him and has invaded the island.  The Amazons defend their home, but their spears are no match to bullets.

The Amazons learn from Trevor that the world is engulfed in war, and Diana believes it is the work of Ares.  She insists on going with Trevor to find Ares, and Trevor is eager to go along with her oddball ideas if it gets him back to deliver the chemical weapons plans he stole as a spy.  Diana now goes to London but finds no help in finding Ares.  Trevor, still dubious but aware of her powers, decides to take her on an unsanctioned mission to take out General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and his own version of Chemical Ali, Dr. Isabel Maru (Elena Anaya).  Going with them are other soldiers of fortune Trevor knows: con artist Sameer (Said Taghmaoui), Scottish marksman Charlie (Ewen Bremner) and Native American smuggler The Chief (Eugene Brave Rock).  They get secret help from Sir Patrick (David Thewlis), who is working to negotiate an armistice.

Diana is shocked by how monstrous war is, and is more determined to bring Ares down.  There is love, there is loss, and there is a shocking revelation to Diana about how man is.  Ares does reveal himself, and tempts her to join him against Man.  However, realizing the sacrifices other Men have made, she decides to fight Ares to the bitter end.

It is all bookended by Diana, now at the Louvre, receiving a faded photo of herself and her crew from Bruce Wayne.

Wonder Woman works for a variety of reasons, all blended and balanced perfectly by director Patty Jenkins.  One of them is that the film takes the premise seriously without being either somber or silly.  The nearly two-and-a-half hour running time did concern me, but what I found was that the story was so rich that it pretty much kept flowing rather smoothly. 

We got properly introduced to Diana, with a beautiful animated sequence explaining the backstory of the Amazons, so that by the time she went out of Paradise Island we could understand her reactions and emotions.  She was a stranger in a strange land, but one that was highly intelligent and with a genuine heart.

Diana's intelligence, however, did not make her aloof, and an extended comic sequence of her trying out the fashions of World War I for women did not diminish her or make her look like an imbecile.  It was light and funny, but it was because we were laughing with her, not at her.  Her puzzlement as to both how women could possibly fight in the clothes of the time or why women weren't at the front were the reactions of someone who came from a whole other society, but while the film was making its own wry commentary on how society struggled to open venues for women, the character herself never got on a soapbox to lecture the unenlightened men.

She let her actions speak for herself, chafing under the misogyny and sexism she encountered but also motivated by a genuine sadness and concern for civilians suffering through war.

Here is where we get another element that makes Wonder Woman such a great success: the cast.  Gal Gadot was a rare bright spot from Yawn of Justice, and Wonder Woman is the promise of that film fulfilled.  She makes Diana a fully-formed figure: naïve without being dim, innocent without being clueless, sincere without being idealistic.  She is able to talk openly about speculation on 'the pleasures of the flesh' while simultaneously wondering why Trevor wouldn't want to sleep next to her.  Gadot makes Diana/Wonder Woman someone without filters or subterfuge, but she also makes her a genuinely caring person, eager to learn more but not afraid to go after evil where she sees it.

Pine now ventures from one franchise (Star Trek) to another, and he fits the bill for the action hero with some smarts.  His Steve Trevor is not unafraid, but one who faces that fear and does what needs to be done.  Appropriately romantic, nervous, agitated, frustrated and in awe of Diana, Pine does extremely well communicating both his wonder and his confusion about who this woman and her ideas are.

In smaller roles, Nielsen and Wright give us the mixture of grace and strength at the heart of Amazon society, one who prepares for war and one who years for the peace they've long held.  Taghmaoui, Bremner, and Brave Rock, although with smaller roles as well, balance the humor, despair, resignation, and joint action of Pine and Gadot.

The special effects work within the story, though the final battle seemed to be a bit overblown.  At times the slow-motion of battles was a bit fatiguing, I'd say effective if a bit excessive.   One can forgive Huston's a-touch bombastic Teutonic villain, complete with accent.

As a side note, Wonder Woman is reminiscent of Captain America: The First Avenger, with the difference that the former was a World War I-set film, the latter World War II. 

If I could quibble about things, it might be that some of the slow-motion was a bit too much and that Huston was a bit broad, as well as the mad scientist bit a bit cliché, but those are such minor quibbles that it seems almost petty.

Wonder Woman is successful because it took the premise seriously without mocking it or thinking it was smarter than the material.  It brought an epic feel to its story without letting the effects and visuals drown out the heart: a strong woman who fights the good fight.  It also takes its time to establish the characters rather than rushing through things to get to the action.  Finally, it doesn't bother trying to tie itself into a larger mythos (the opening and closing scenes being the only things to tie it in with the overall DC Extended Universe, and if you cut them out you could spin a whole franchise with Wonder Woman alone). 

With strong performances by the cast, especially Gadot in the title role, Wonder Woman is a fine example of a comic book adaptation done right.  I don't think since the original Superman has there been a comic book-based debut story that is just about perfect.  A mix of action, adventure, comedy, and romance all balancing themselves within the overall story, Wonder Woman shows that DC can make a good film.

Whether it can that from now on is another matter altogether.

    
DECISION: A-

Wonder Woman: The Unaired Pilot Review

Editor's Note: As a precursor to reviewing Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, I thought it would be nice to take a glance at the last time one of the characters from that film make it onto our small screen.  We've had Superman in teen angst (Smallville) and romantic comedy (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman).  We now have a very successful Batman prequel (Gotham). 

However, what about Wonder Woman?  Well...

She Is Wonder Woman.  See Her Bomb...

I am old enough to remember the Wonder Woman television show with Lynda Carter as the Amazonian comic book character.  I never thought the show was campy or silly, though I always wondered where exactly her glasses went whenever she would spin around and the explosion would turn her into the Amazonian princess warrior.

However, since Wonder Woman went off the air the character herself has been absent from the screen save for animated versions such as the Super Friends or Justice League series. There was always talk about a Wonder Woman movie, but for whatever reason nothing came to fruition until 2016, when Wonder Woman appeared in film for the first time as part of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  Regardless of the success or failure of Dawn of Justice, we will get a Wonder Woman film in 2017. 

As I thought about both Wonder Woman and Dawn of Justice, it brought to mind the last attempt to mount a project around this DC character.  In 2011 it was announced that Wonder Woman would return to our television screens.  It all looked so promising.  David E. Kelley, the wunderkind behind L.A. Law, The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Boston Legal, (all Emmy-winning shows) was the Wonder Woman pilot scriptwriter and producer. 

However, despite  his talents (or perhaps because of them), when he began touting that his Wonder Woman was going to be 'different' and 'unique' we could see the writing on the wall.  Anytime someone states that something will be 'different' and 'unique' from the source material, we should worry. 

Those fears were realized when the pilot was screened for NBC executives.  What was once considered a sure-fire property was roundly rejected by the network brass.  So appalled were they that Wonder Woman was hoped to be buried, never to be seen again.

Ah, but these are the years of the Internet, where nothing gets buried for long.  The unaired Wonder Woman pilot soon found itself making the circles.  The question now is, 'Was it as awful as all that?'

AND THEN SOME!!

There is something nefarious going on in the inner city/ghetto.  Young, relatively healthy men are suddenly becoming violently ill.  Diana Themyscira (Adrienne Palicki), head of Themyscira Industries, also publicly known as Wonder Woman, is launching herself into investigating what evil is this.  If it means using the Lasso of Truth to strangle suspects she chases down the streets, or complaining to a cop who orders her to step away from the suspect that he'll only 'lawyer up', little details.

Obviously, Diana Themyscira is no fan of the Bill of Rights.

She opts to go deeper into this case by publicly accusing supplements businesswoman Veronica Cale (Elizabeth Hurley) of using some sort of secret formula to create some sort of performance-enhancing drugs that give people almost super-strength...but will kill them.  She then adds that she cannot prove these charges (which she makes at a press conference) but will do eventually.

Meanwhile, her CFO Henry (last name either Johns or Demter) (Cary Elwes) can only fret as Diana continually seems uninterested in the marketing and merchandising of herself via the Wonder Woman figures.  If I understand things correctly, the various figures, dolls, and I figure lunchboxes all go into funding her vigilante work (work, I might add, which Diana is very public about, the world fully aware that Wonder Woman and Diana Themyscira are one and the same).

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Diana finds being Wonder Woman a bit hard at times, so she opts for a secret identity: Diana Prince, who can sneak away to a small apartment where she can enjoy the company of a cat, go on Facebook, and watch sappy romances like The Notebook.

Anyhoo, Veronica Cale isn't thrilled by Wonder Woman's allegations and attempts to push her around, even bringing her friend, Senator Warren (Edward Herrmann) in to put the squeeze on our PATRIOT Act-busting superheroine.  Wonder Woman, however, will not be denied, pushing her cleavage around to force her silent police partner Ed Indelicato (Pedro Pascal) into letting her 'see the witness' who is under police protection (in large part BECAUSE of her).  She has the Lasso of Truth, but why use THAT when you can break someone's arm?

It all culminates in her raiding Veronica's secret lair where evil experiments are being conducted.  Wonder Woman, in her all-too-visible plane, goes in, kills (yes, I said KILLS) a lot of bad guys, and faces Veronica Cale down.

At the end of this victory, she gets notice that the lawyer from the Justice Department is here to see her.  We learn that this lawyer is the same guy she's been seeing in flashbacks: none other than Steve Trevor (Justin Bruening). 

Wonder Woman is so disastrous in so many ways one marvels at how often Kelly and Company manage to botch things, sometimes finding new ways of doing so.

Let's start with the identity crisis.  This Wonder Woman apparently isn't satisfied with having a dual identity (let alone a secret one).  She is very open about being Wonder Woman AND Diana Themyscira.  EVERYONE knows she's one and the same, begging the question of why any potential super-villains haven't just tried to go after her.

I thought the whole point of a secret identity was to let you work...in secret.  Then again, I'm apparently not as smart as David E. Kelley. 

Making things more muddled was Kelley's decision to go with something of the established Canon by making her have a third, really secret identity: Diana Prince.  I imagine this was his way to show how clever he was, how he was reinventing the wheel.

What it really showed was his efforts to be TOO clever and only ending up looking foolish.  It makes no sense to introduce three identities when two will do.

Furthermore, some of the dialogue is downright hilarious in the unintentionally so manner.  At the T.I. board meeting when Diana is discussing the case with her assistant Etta Candy (Tracie Thoms), the issue of the new Wonder Woman doll comes up.  A clearly frustrated Diana argues that despite his insistence she never approved the design. 

"I never said merchandize my TITS!" she bellows.

It is a sign of the confused nature of Wonder Woman that on one hand, Kelley is attempting to make a proto-feminist case about how women, even superheroines, are objectified, and on the other essentially cements this objectification with Wonder Woman using her bosom to essentially push men around. 

Add to that, what kind of superheroine can Wonder Woman be when she is reduced to being a sad cat-lady pining over her ex Steve Trevor (whom in the flashbacks we see HER dumping HIM and in the end seeing he opted to marry)?   Who knew the Amazonian warrior princess was such a fan of Nicholas Sparks films?

There are other moments in Wonder Woman that are just flat-out bizarre.  At the end of Wonder Woman's blatantly illegal raid (after making public accusations that she admitted she could not prove...can anyone say, 'libel'), she meets a waiting Veronica Cale.  Cale tells Wonder Woman in a triumphant tone that she has her on videotape raiding her establishment and killing (yes, I said KILLING) her workers.

"You're about to meet your equal, Wonder Woman: the American criminal justice system".

No actor, no matter how talented, could utter such a line and make it sound sensible.
They opted to have Elizabeth Hurley say it.

There are so many points where Wonder Woman is determined to go against Canon to show how inventive it is, only to make those who know even the most cursory thing about her scratch their heads.  She has the Lasso of Truth, but never uses it unless it's to physically torture people.  Instead, she actually tortures people to get information (one character refers to it as "Abu Ghrabing").  Maybe Kelley was attempting political commentary.  If he did, he chose the absolutely worse vehicle to do so.

She has no invisible plane (which again, makes one wonder why it has never been shot down).  She funds her crime-fighting by marketing, which I don't think would go over well with the Federal Trade Commission.  Despite her great investigative skills, she and no one at Themyscira Industries was aware that Steve Trevor worked at Justice.

In terms of acting it is a sight to behold.  Only Thoms saves herself from embarrassment, as she made her Etta Candy a responsible, intelligent figure (which is more than I can say for everyone else).  Elwes had nothing to do but be constantly flustered (as if perhaps he knew he was in a disaster and couldn't stop praying for cancellation).  I felt bad for the late Edward Herrmann being dragged into this with an almost pathetic effort at some faux Southern cone-pone accent as a sleazy Senator.

Let me say that I have nothing against Justin Bruening.  He's a good-looking man and I figure a nice man off-screen.  However, he was so blank and wooden as Trevor.  It takes a special kind of talent to be out-acted by Lyle Waggoner.

The two women were, well, there.  Hurley, as far as I can judge by the pilot, played this up as camp, opting to go for something if not completely comedic at least as something like a lark.  Palicki, bless her, I think made a sincere effort to be serious, making their scenes together all the more bonkers. 

I'm not going to trash the costume simply because I think the costume trashes itself.  I am going to trash how blatantly Wonder Woman opts to kill, to torture, to be rather reprehensible.  At one point, she tells the poor black teen that he needs to get better, and to leave the vengeance to her.

"I'm pretty good at it," she confides to him. 

Since when was Wonder Woman about 'revenge'?  I thought she was about justice.

Then again, I'm not as smart as David E. Kelley.

Either Kelley didn't understand the source material or thought he was above it somehow (intellectually, artistically, whatever).  Even leaving aside the technical aspects the unaired pilot has (the visible wires, which I'm not faulting it for since that is removed in post-production), Wonder Woman itself is riddled with bad acting, a bizarre story that is jumbled and downright silly, and simply insults fans and casual viewers simultaneous.

You ARE a wonder, Wonder Woman...a wonderful bit of accidental comedy.

 1/10