by Brian Louis Allen Henderson.
I am seeing the reviews and takes come in and all I can think is, I don’t want to care. I don’t want to care about Wonder Woman.
I want to care about other things, like my children. Like, my job. Like the state of the world. The environment, social justice, corruption. But right now, it’s Wonder Woman.
And all I want to say about Wonder Woman was that this time I liked it. And last time I didn’t. Last time I didn’t and everyone else did, and last time I didn’t want to say publicly that I didn’t like it because I feared that my not liking Wonder Woman would be taken not as “I didn’t like this movie” and instead as “I don’t like women.”
This time, however, I did like the movie, but apparently because the movie is about how the world’s most powerful woman doesn’t feel complete without a man in her life, and also, I am assuming, because the movie’s villain is a sympathetic stand-in for Trump, and not a condemnation, the movie has been deemed “not good,” and/or “terrible” as well as “problematic” by many of the same people who championed the first film.
I don’t know if the people who like the first film saw the same film that I did. In fact I don’t know if many people are seeing films at all, or seeing them for what they are. And that goes for art/pop-culture in general, which is now consumed as an expression of identitarian politics, as a whose-side-are-you-on, or whose team’s colors am I wearing? A movie is good if it reinforces my beliefs or plays to my political preferences and bad if it doesn’t. Aesthetics and craft are tertiary, or only applicable if the first set of criteria are successfully met.
The first Wonder Woman, a movie ostensibly made for girls under 10, was dark and gritty, often entirely gray, at times grisly, often joylous, about World War 1 for chrissakes, and cast David Thewlis as its final villain. Don’t know who he is? that’s part of the problem. To me he will always be this guy. But it doesn’t matter. The ending fight was just stuff blowing up in the dark, the clearest sign of all that it’s a bad superhero movie. Nevertheless, because it was the first and most prominent female super-hero movie of the recent era which was also directed by a woman, it checked all the boxes and was therefore declared good.
I thought it was awful, save for two scenes (the early comic bit where Wonder Woman, clad in full British tweed, saves her pals from bullets fired by baddies in an alley in Britain and of course the scene where she crosses the marginal line), which were well done. But part of what bothered me about the film was less how little I was enjoyed most of it and more how poorly it was designed for its primary purpose: entertaining kids, ten and under. Especially girls. Maybe having Wonder Woman lead a squad of grizzled BIPOC/LGBTQ though still male-presenting mercenaries through the harrowing trenches of WWI to stop a disfigured manufacturer of poison gases is just what little girls need. I don’t know. Maybe I’m already dooming myself by gendering the focal point of this paragraph.
Anyway. Wonder Woman 2, or whatever you want to call it, was brightly colored, and emotional, and lively and fun all the way through. The plot was ridiculous, but the movie is called Wonder Woman, and she’s buddies with a guy called Superman, so if you’re not ok with the ridiculous premise, you should stick with cop shows, or documentaries or reality TV. I personally prefer superhero movies where they lean into the ridiculous premise, rather than try and make it real or gritty. I loved, as a kid, when Superman turned back time by spinning the world backwards. It seems entirely preposterous now, but audaciously so. And I didn’t mind at all how ridiculous the wishing stone plot device was in this movie. Ok, I minded a little, but I got over it, I enjoyed the way that Kristin Wiig’s character was changed by her choices. And it was Kristin Wiig. Kristin Wiig is the villain, how much more apprpopriate for a super hero movie made primarily for girls under 10 that Kristin Wiig (not David Thewlis, or Danny Huston, or whoever played the barely shown oversexed female phantom of the opera in the first film) be the villain. And also that she not be entirely evil. The same with Mandalorian Trump. Was it a little weak that they kept harping on how much he loved (while totally neglecting) his son? Of course. Would it still help resonate and connect with a kid watching the movie? Totally. Kids are used to parents telling them they love them soooo much, but then doing everything to ignore them when a kid needs something.
I could be wrong. I haven’t been able to bring myself to read the negative takes on Wonder Woman 2. Maybe all the doyens and denizens of culture and art I follow on Twitter who hate the second movie hate it for legitimate non-political aesthetic reasons. Maybe they are, like me, burned out on 80s throwback entertainment. Maybe they are wiling to admit that Gal Gadot is a seriously limited actor. Maybe they legit don’t like superhero movies, or Marvel-style superhero movies, which this was, and which I prefer, and which some people just don’t like. Some people prefer the Zack Snyder style DC universe. I think Zack Snyder is the worst thing to ever happen to superhero movies. I think the only good think he ever did was cast Gal Gadot, even with her limited acting abilities, as Wonder Woman. She has presence, for sure, and she’s stunning, and she fits completely as the titular, sorry, character.
I don’t care though. Or I don’t want to care. And I’m done caring. Wonder Woman 2 was good, Wonder Woman 1 was bad. I also didn’t like Get Out, but I’m not a racist because I thought Sorry to Bother You was one of the best films of that year. I did like Us, but before you let me off the hook I should tell you I thought La La Land was leagues better than Moonlight, and if that doesn’t get me banned from sharing my opinions on movies now and forever I don’t know what will.
Which is good, because like I said, I don’t want to care.