Wonder Woman (Spoilers)

So usually when I watch a superhero movie like Wonder Woman, I write my review of what I thought of the movie and then I write a separate post where I can talk about all the spoilers in the film and what I thought about it. I should have come out with a spoilers post a while ago since Wonder Woman came out earlier this month. Now I could make up some reason why this month has been busy and I haven’t been able to write nearly as much as I would like to. And while that is partly true, that’s not the reason I haven’t written a spoilers post for Wonder Woman. The truth is, there’s not a lot to talk about spoiler-wise for this movie.

With the exception of the reveal of who Ares is, which I will talk about, Wonder Woman is a pretty self-contained movie and the reason superhero movies require these spoiler reviews is because there’s usually a post-credit scene or allusions to future movies in these films and the truth is, there’s not much in this film that alludes to future DC films or gives us an idea of where the franchise is headed after Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman takes place during World War 1. She’s fighting with a rag tag group of soldiers of fortune and Steve Trevor. The bad guys for the majority of the movie are Doctor Poison and Ludendorf, two characters that while they are fun in this movie, really won’t have an audience calling for their return in future movies. And then there’s Ares… again, I’ll get to Ares. My point is, this story is pretty simple and by the end of it, with a couple of possible exceptions, everyone is dead after decades since WW1.

So are any of the characters from Wonder Woman coming back in future movies? The likely answer is no. Starting with the good guys, Steve Trevor flies a plane filled with toxic gas in the air in an act of selfless sacrifice. I don’t care how charming Chris Pine is or how much people liked him, if you bring this character back, you are no better than Marvel, DC. Do. Not. Do. It. The other guys in their little group are fun characters but I didn’t care for them nearly enough to have them come back.

And as far as bad guys go. It is revealed that Ludendorf was just a German general who snorted god pills. He wasn’t anybody important and he was stabbed in the heart by Wonder Woman. No need to bring him back. Doctor Poison probably has the most potential to come back, but there was nothing incredibly special about her both as a character or a performance that means that she would come back. I think there’s a potential that the God pills will appear in later films and they could potentially reference Doctor Poison continuing her work even though she was almost killed by Wonder Woman and continuing distributing those pills to future bad guys, but there’s really no reason for her to show up again.

And then there’s Ares.

In all reality, Ares was not that great of a villain. I think I wanted him to be great, especially with the limited knowledge I have of him (mainly Injustice: Gods Among Us). The idea of the God of War, someone who grows more and more powerful when there is conflict is a really interesting character, especially in the DCEU, and especially set in World War 1, a global conflict that would Ares could feed off of immensely.

And I do think people misinterpret Are’s part in the plot. Even I was initially confused when Wonder Woman kills him and I start questioning why World War 2 happens when the God of War is killed. But what people get confused on is that Ares didn’t force anybody to do anything, he just fed on the natural wickedness of humanity and their desire to perpetrate violence and he gave them suggestions on how to create bigger weapons and fuel the violence more. I think the ending does work, it just maybe wasn’t executed as well as people would have liked it to be.

First starting with the use of David Thewlis as Ares. At first I didn’t really hate the idea because the character he played in the movie was an unassuming old man and while it wasn’t a huge twist, I can’t say I was totally expecting him to be Ares. I don’t think he does a horrible job. Being British gives you a lot of points when you’re trying to be evil.  But then he starts transforming into Ares and when he’s in his badass armor and you can still see and hear Remus Lupin behind the armor, it kind of sucked the air out of THE GOD OF WAR to just have this old British guy. And then I remember that there were talks about Sean Bean being in the movie and I can’t help but think that that was supposed to be his character and that makes me very sad cause that would have been awesome. 

But I think the biggest let down about Ares was that if this character had been written better and been a more compelling villain, this was a villain you could have definitely kept alive to return as a heel to Diana in future movies. Even in Injustice: Gods Among Us, he’s not a main villain but you could tell in the game that he’s powerful and thinking about all that potential power would be great in a future movie, maybe with a crossover with another hero.

Now, Ares could potentially come back. Superhero villains have come back from less in the past. Will he though? Probably not. Like I’ve said multiple times, Wonder Woman is a pretty solid self-contained film. Patty Jenkins joined on because she wanted to tell a Wonder Woman story and based on her track record, especially considering the reasons she left the director’s chair for Thor: The Dark World, it doesn’t seem like she’s the kind of director that is really interested in making movies for the sake of other movies. And don’t get me wrong, I love that about her. I love how self-contained Wonder Woman is and how you can watch it as a part of a larger cinematic universe as well as its own movie. But it doesn’t fill me with hope that Ares is coming back, especially with how final his death seemed in the movie. 

The only other reason Superhero movies usually get a spoiler review is to talk about certain scenes that were great but would spoil the movie for the audience if I talked about it in the regular review. Really the only scene that is worth talking about is the scene in the trailer where Wonder Woman steps out into No man’s land. And the thing is, there’s not a lot to spoil as that scene was basically in the trailers. That was the scene where Wonder Woman showed off the majority of her moves and she just goes to town on a bunch of German soldiers. 

I want to talk about this scene because this was really the scene in the movie where I had goosebumps and fully saw Wonder Woman as the hero we've been waiting for in the DCEU. This was the moment where Wonder Woman was revealed as the goddess.   

If you're at all a fan of film and storytelling, you'll know that a lot of films follow the formula of The Hero's Journey. You'll find this formula and form of storytelling in a lot of your favorite films and books most notable, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, etc. And Wonder Woman follows this formula to a certain extent and it follows it very well with it's own twists, turns, and deviations.

I bring this up because the hero's journey usually includes a part called "The Meeting of The Goddess". In Star Wars, this is the first time Luke Skywalker meets Princess Leia. It's the part where the hero meets a cosmic being with ultimate power and (usually) she carries the plot along with her power. The scene where she steps up into no man's land is both the Apothesis, the part where the hero overcomes the constraints held on them, accepts the adventure they're in and carries forward for the bigger part, and for the audience, the meeting of an absolute goddess in the power Wonder Woman exhibits.

I know I might be improperly reallocating elements of the Hero's journey to make a point, but that was all I could think about. The audience is both seeing the development of a character we have grown to love and enjoy watching become the hero she was born to be.

So yeah, given some time, I still think that Wonder Woman is as solid of a movie as I originally said it was.

Now, what does Wonder Woman mean for the DCEU?

I don’t really know. Because this is such a self-contained story, and because it is so isolated in World War 1, this is more of a prequel to anything happening in the DCEU at the moment so as great as this movie is, story-wise it doesn’t have anything to do with the events of Batman V Superman, Suicide Squad, or the upcoming Justice League.

And that’s the one thing that worries me. Regardless of the fact that Wonder Woman was a fantastic movie, the train of story that Zack Snyder and the other people at DC started with Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman is still rolling into Justice League. That is not to say that Justice League is not going to be good, I just know that the success of Wonder Woman came pretty late in the production game for Justice League and there’s not a lot of time to steer the movie in more of the Wonder Woman caliber direction. 

And that's the real effect Wonder Woman had. The movie hopefully showed DC the tone and the direction that these movies should be going and showed the correct way to introduce and make a superhero bad ass. So Wonder Woman definitely had an effect on the DC cinematic universe, just how much is still yet to be seen.

DC made the announcement that they want to wait and observe the success of Justice League before moving forward with their cinematic universe so basically everything is on hold. This both frightens me as well as gives me hope for the cinematic universe.

It worries me because I love DC movies and I would love to see these movies blow up the same way Marvel movies have. We’ve been waiting for a Justice League movie for years now and unless the movie is overly bad… like Last Airbender bad, I’m still going to be jacked by this movie. And to have such an important movie come and then have a good amount of time so DC can get their ducks in a row will really pull the wind out of my sails. Now on the opposite end of that, I do think that DC is being smart and it's not like they're not going to continue making these movies in one capacity or another, it just means they're going to give themselves a little bit of time and decide the direction that works best for them once Justice League is done. And this makes even more sense after Wonder Woman especially if Justice League doesn't perform well, they may pull Patty Jenkins into a more important role in the cinematic universe and make this franchise more centered around Wonder Woman... which at this point I'm actually not really opposed to. 

I don't know how big Wonder Woman's role in Justice League is right now but I know in the

amount of time that Joss Whedon is in the driver's seat before the movie is completed and ready for release, they might be reediting the movie to feature a little bit more of Wonder Woman. 

Overall, I'm highly interested in the future installments of the DCEU. They seem to be on a pretty good track with Aquaman so I believe that's coming out too and who knows, maybe Justice League is going to be really great and I'm not giving it enough credit. But after the train wreck that was 2016 with not just DC superhero movies but all superhero movies in general, I'm airing on the side of caution as I have seen the track record and it doesn't look great. 

I do apologize for the wacky format of this post and how disjointed it might be. I wrote part of this right after I saw the movie and then I let it sit for a while and then I wanted to add my thoughts on the DCEU moving forward and this is definitely less of a spoilers review of Wonder Woman as much as it is checking into the DCEU and seeing where we've been and where we're headed. 

But what do you think? It's been a couple weeks since I've seen Wonder Woman so let me know if there's any scenes I missed that I should have talked about. Also you should let me know what you think about the DCEU and if you're comforted by Wonder Woman, still worried, or if you're cautiously excited like me. Where do you think the franchise is going? 

Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review or rant about in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog as well as live tweets from shows and movies I happen to be watching at the time. 

I'll leave you with this. I found this video recently and it really illustrates well the reasons why Wonder Woman was successful and what it improved on, not only in the DC cinematic universe, but for Superhero films in general today. Enjoy!