Wonder Woman Movie Review: Gal Gadot Is The PERFECT Wonder Woman!

After an intro to Wonder Woman in last year's "Batman v Superman", she finally gets her long awaited movie. I gotta say, the show surpassed all my expectations. And I'm not the only one. It is the highest grossing movie directed by a woman (Patty Jenkins) and has reach $3 billion+ sales worldwide.

The movie opens on a young Diane Prince on the island of Theymscira. She wants to learn to fight like the other Amazons but her mother Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) thinks otherwise. Diana's aunty General Antiope (Robin Wright) secretly trains her anyway.

Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) is an American spy. He crashes a stolen plane though the invisibility shield that protects the island and almost drowns (until Diana saves him). Soon the Germans follow and a battle begins. Despite the women being super fierce they are no match for guns. Antiope is killed. Diana learns the world is at war. This is 1918 and WWI (although I suspect some may think it's WWII). Before leaving the island, Diana takes the sword (known as the "godkiller" since it was passed down from Zeus), the Lasso of Truth, and her arm bracelets.

She is off to find Ares (whom she believes is the instigator of the "war to end all wars"). We laugh because...silly girl... Ares isnt real. Or is he? Upon arriving in London, Steve and Diana dont get much support for their quest. After amassing a rag tag group, they head out anyway.

Diana thinks the Germans will return to their normal law abiding selves upon being freed from Ares' influence. Unfortunately, history paints a different story. We do get some good villains though in the form of a German general (played by the always wonderful Danny Huston) and a female villain called Dr Poison (Elena Ayana). Yes, her name is accurate. I wont give the rest of the story away. Suffice to say, there are some great action sequences and surprise twists that I didnt see coming.

Grade: 5 Monsters (out of 5). Near perfection! DC finally delivers on a "Wonder Woman" we can all be proud of. Gal Gadot has a tremendous screen presence and just the right amounts of charisma, humor, and bad-assery. I look forward to seeing more of her (and the other DC superheros) in "Justice League".

Other positives about "WW": Gal Gadot and Chris Pine have great onscreen chemistry. The theme song rocks! Wonder Woman is a great role model for young girls. She can whoop the boys(if need be) but still be kind and vulnerable.

I appreciate DC's treatment of Wonder Woman's origin story. She has one of the best in comics. I watched all the episodes of the 1970s "Wonder Woman" TV series with Lynda Carter. I still didnt realize that WW was a god. Well, technically she's a demigod since Zeus is her father (and Ares is her half brother).

Luckily we didnt have to deal with Wonder Woman's invisible plane in this movie. As a child, I found it really bizarre. If the jet is invisible, you'd see her bobbing around in the sky wouldnt ya? Maybe I've thought about this too much.

My other criticism is the movie should have been edited down a bit. Clocking in at 2 hours, 21 minutes it is a reasonably long watch. But this still doesnt outweigh the fun I had watching WW trying to sense of the "modern" world and fighting the bad guys.