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so i went to see wonder woman – here are my thoughts, spoiler-free

first off: i know gal gadot is Super Not Great and i don’t want to touch that whole thing with a bargepole because it’s really not my place. i went to see this movie because it’s the first female superhero movie & that’s really important to me, but i totally understand not wanting to support it because of her.

but on to the actual movie.

i have super super mixed feelings, honestly. im so happy there’s finally a female superhero movie, about fuckin time honestly, & i got !! at several points in the movie bc its a lady!! doing what only men have done so far!! yes!! nothing that bothers me abt the movie remotely takes away from this fact; the bottom line is, thank fuck this movie has finally been made, and thank fuck it’s decent.

diana is amazing. she kicks ass & the movie shows us how powerful, badass, skilled, and just straight up determined she is. i can think of the number of female protagonists who are allowed to be just as kickass as she is on one hand. it’s also important to note that she’s not just the “sexy badass” trope; she’s allowed moments of real vulnerability and uncertainty too. her acting isn’t the greatest, unfortunately, and she’s kinda shown up by the rest of the cast who are all great characters brilliantly acted. in comparison, her character (and acting) can feel a little one-dimensional, which is unfortunate, but not bad enough to really affect the movie all that much.

the plot is a superhero plot. it’s tropey and predictable, the twists can be seen from literally miles away, there are conveninent plotholes & movie logic all over the place, and the final, climactic battle is the least interesting fight of the movie. some scenes go on a little too long, some jokes are set up for a while but fail to properly deliver; in general the script could do with a little tightening up. it holds the movie back from being truly great, which is a shame, but again it’s not something that ruins it at all.

this is a feminist movie, there’s no doubt about that. diana is independent and has no problem telling men to fuck off when they’re trying to decide what she should or shouldn’t do. but. and there is a but here. there are several things that detract from that.

first is the costume design. all the amazons are gorgeous and badass and their armour leaves little to the imagination. it doesn’t offer good protection remotely (there are even a couple of examples of the infamous boob cups), and it’s iffy whether they’re even practical to fight in (short skirts offer a good range of movement, sure, but heels, diana?). as a feminist im kinda disappointed; as a wlw i had an absolute blast. the only thing that did really bother me about these outfits is the camera work: the first shot we see of diana pans up from her heels, in a classic misogynistic reducing-a-woman-to-her-appearance shot (we see her body before we see her face); later, when we see the amazonians fighting, and its like theres there women doing amazing athletic leaps and oh look! the camera was perfectly positioned to see her butt. great.

neither of these are Massive Issues remotely; i wasn’t aware of either of them really beyond the first couple of scenes. the rest of diana’s fights we get to see a whole lot of upper thigh but again, im gay, and also it felt like the camera was more interested in her skill as a warrior than her sex appeal. i might be wrong, but that’s my take away. she is sexualised in dialogue, though, with several references to how attractive she is (i counted three, i think? so not terrible, but enough that i noticed it).

another potential issue is the romance. steve (chris pine) is no white knight; he can hold his own in a fight but he’s nothing like diana, and she comes to his rescue on multiple occasions. but i did feel he got a teensy tiny bit too much attention in the movie. he’s not the main character by any means, but he is in almost every scene after his first appearance (pretty darn early on), and he does get several important story/emotional beats, as well as shared credit for a lot of diana’s achievements. i’d also be interested whether he has more lines than diana; honestly it might be touch and go.

the final thing that i noticed, and the only thing that actually properly bothered me, was the way diana was characterised as the source of most of the movie’s comedy. remember that video that went around recently about the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope? y e p. diana has no understanding of our world, needing basic things explaining to her, and, worst of all, is into the very first man she meets ever in her entire life. her faux pas in this world are amusing, theyre sweet, theyre honestly even really pure and lovely at points, but there’s too much of it. i’ve been trying to work out in my head how exactly it differs from thor’s inexperience of the world in his first movie, which was also played for laughs. i haven’t hit on exactly how it’s different – although i know it is – but i think the sex thing definitely plays a part. diana implies she’s not a virgin (also the only line that implies she and the other amazons aren’t straight), but she’s consistently shown to be unexperienced, using weird terms for sex and relationships, being confused by courtship tropes, and arguably being unaware of men’s attraction to her. it’s not awful, and it does provide some of the only comedy in the movie (which gets pretty fuckin dark in places, it’s ww1 and it’s not pretty). i do think it’s handled poorly, and at the very least overdone, which is a real shame.

honestly, in a plot twist that surprised everyone, diana and the whole feminism aspect of the movie weren’t what i liked best about it. i’d only seen a bit of one trailer and no other promotional material, so i don’t know whether i would’ve realised this if i had seen more, but i was so pleasantly surprised to see not only how diverse the supporting cast was, but unfraid the script was to get real about racial issues. a first nations man talks about the atrocities committed against aboriginal americans and gets taken seriously; a french-moroccan speaks candidly about racism. i don’t want to big this up too much – these are both single lines, not the focus of a scene or anything – but i did appreciate that these moments were included. this isn’t colourblind casting; it’s great that half the supporting cast are characters of colour, but even better that this isn’t just passed over without comment or made into a trope or charicature. the movie did really well in this regard, i think, and i am really pleased to see it.

all in all, a historic film, a decent movie, disappointing in a few places but very pleasantly surprising in others. it’s not my favourite movie ever, and i won’t be rushing out to see it again, but none of its faults could ever remotely detract from my excitement at there finally being a female superhero movie. about time, y’all.

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