Amazon princess Diana leaves her tranquil island of Themyscira, home of the Amazonian race of warrior women created by Zeus, and joins US pilot and Allied spy, Steve Trevor, to fight against the Germans who are developing a lethal type of gas to win the war. Diana believes that only she can bring an end to the war by finding and killing Ares, the God of War, who despises mankind and is intent on wiping them out for good.
In short, there are four things wrong with this movie.
Firstly, Gal Gadot is too sexy and comes across as a little dim naive. She’s hot, beautiful, has a body built for sin the catwalk but, as a kick-ass warrior princess, about as believable as a lingerie model advertising burgers. This isn’t a criticism of Gal, I like her lots, but she just doesn’t have the build for this part and is the type of woman who could turn you on whilst wearing a burka with a gas mask. The coy glances and seductive smiles peppered throughout the movie don’t help and neither does the sexy foreign accent. I’m not saying a woman can’t be sexy and aggressive (Linda Fiorentino nailed it in The Last Seduction) but Gal Gadot was so much stronger and intelligent in Batman v Superman.
Secondly, Diana’s weapons are all pretty lame; a lasso of truth which is as naff as it sounds; a pair of gauntlets which can deflect all manner of bullets conveniently fired at head height; a standard issue super hero shield which Captain America rejected; and an elaborate sword that looks like it was borrowed from the 1960’s Sinbad movies. Granted, her abilities are super cool and the fighting scenes are awesome when Diana gets to kick ass but these are all too fleeting and brief.
Thirdly, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor comes across as a typical smug know-it-all American. The last time such a hackneyed clichéd version of a smarmy US Air Pilot was on-screen, he was feeling the need for speed and playing volleyball with a bunch of other buff guys pretending to be straight. A drop dead gorgeous Amazonian warrior princess and a male model look-a-like pilot in World War I? I don’t buy it, not even on celluloid.
Lastly, the movie is too long and the fundamental issue of love conquering everything is a proper cop out. I actually groaned out loud when I heard some of the atrocious dialogue. Gal deserves better than this.
Another way of looking at this film is that the Wonder Woman portrayed in Batman v Superman is a hundred times more entertaining in less than a quarter of the on-screen time than the full 2+ hours of this movie. I mentioned in a previous blog that the DC Universe is no match for Marvel and on the basis of this flick, nothing’s changed. Roll on the next Batman movie.
Score: 2/5
Grumpy Bear Blog 
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