Lyssa Henry

Wonder Woman is a new but instant success about the Amazonian princess Diana (played by Gal Gadot), and her rise to influence as the well-known and well-loved DC superhero, Wonder Woman. There are familiar characters that fans of the comic books and old TV shows will recognize such as Antiope (Robin Wright), Ares (David Thewlis), and Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen). There are also some less well-known or new characters, such as Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), Sameer (Saïd Taghmaoui), Charlie (Ewen Bremner), and the Chief (Eugene Brave Rock).

This movie made a gross worldwide revenue of $821,847,012, which puts it at 21st on the top domestic gross charts, according to boxofficemojo.com. This website also reported that Wonder Woman set a new record for amount of money made at opening for a movie directed by a woman, reaching an amazing $100 million, even surpassing the previous record of $85.1 million made by Fifty Shades of Grey. Rotten Tomatoes said: “Thrilling, earnest, and buoyed by Gal Gadot’s charismatic performance, Wonder Woman succeeds in spectacular fashion.” Many critics gave raving reviews of the performance of Gal and the rest of the cast, as well as how empowering the movie was for women, and the ultimate thrill viewers got from simply watching the feature. Not all reviews were quite as positive, though. Steve Rose of “The Guardian” basically reduced Diana’s war efforts to that of a “weaponized Smurfette”, saying that the focus on the flawlessness of her technique and reflexes amid rapid gunfire in an apparently literal no-man’s-land seemed like it made the rest of the soldiers look useless – “Think of what might have been avoided if she’d turned up a few years earlier!” In defense of the reputation of this particular movie, however, I would challenge Mr. Rose to name any other superhero movie that does not do the exact same thing for its respective hero. If the hero was limited to the same fighting abilities as the soldiers in the trenches, there would be no further progression made other than what was already being accomplished. If the bold move of Diana had not been made by climbing out of the trenches, the movie would have been caught at a standstill, and would have lasted considerably longer than 2 hours and 21 minutes.

This movie focused on two main characters, Diana and Steve Trevor. Diana was raised on the mythology of her people, kept on a secret island for their own protection, but put on earth by the gods to protect man. All her life, Diana wanted to fight like the brave women she lived with. She was the only child on the island, as there were no men that even knew of its existence. The only reason she existed herself was because her mother formed her out of clay and had her brought to life by the gods.

Even though Diana was the only child on an island of women, she still did not get everything she wanted. It took many secret lessons behind her mother’s back before Diana was allowed to learn how to fight. As her queen, Antiope didn’t want Diana’s godlike power to hurt the other women, and as Diana’s mother, Antiope didn’t want Diana to hurt herself. Later in the movie, we find out that the “god killer” left on the island by Zeus was not the sword that the Amazonians thought it was, but it was the princess herself. Throughout the story, Diana is seen discovering new abilities and strengths she has, and is tested in her ability to continue fighting for people that had over time become so impure. Often in our world, it is easy to forget that we were created as something good, and we give in to our temptations to be selfish or to fight with our own brothers. As she had grown up on an island where there was almost always peace, Diana came to a rude awakening when she discovered  that men are constantly fighting and constantly doing wrong.

Steve Trevor, on the other hand, was not so sheltered. He grew up learning  that if you wanted change to happen, you had to make it happen. Steve was a spy in the first world war, but instead of going away and reporting what he had seen to his superiors, he decided to steal the book of a dangerous scientist and take it back to London by himself. In his not-so graceful escape, Trevor found himself literally crashing into the world of the Amazons, forced to do what they told him, and eventually leaving with the eager Diana to stop the war. He had always gone with the process of war, reporting to superiors who didn’t make very active efforts to change anything. However, Diana was not a fan of this mindset, so she convinced him to bring her directly to the front lines, the center of the action. Diana felt that if she destroyed Ares, the god of war, the minds of the men would immediately be turned back to the peaceful and cooperative frame that she had grown up seeing, but was sorely disappointed to discover that they were too far gone for such a sudden change. The war didn’t end after Ares was defeated, but Diana discovered that she could still make a difference in the lives of some innocent people, deserving or not. Steve Trevor learned a lot from the sheltered perspective of Diana about caring about other people and making active changes, and Diana learned a lot from Steve Trevor in the ways of trying to help people even though they could not be turned “good”.

Steve’s growth throughout the movie had much to do with his confidence and his romantic relationship with Diana. At the beginning of the movie, he would often defend his own masculinity, his virginity, and his ability (or lack thereof) to impress the Amazonians. By the middle of the movie, he has no need to defend his masculinity or virginity anymore, as he and Diana decide to take their relationship to a more physical level. By the very end of the movie, he realizes that he does not need to impress the Amazonians as much as prove his own worth to himself, and saves a lot of people by sacrificing himself. Trevor ends up piloting a plane full of bombs to a location where it can no longer hurt innocent people, but in the process is blown up himself.

The most influential antagonist of the movie was none other than Ares, the god of war. Cleverly disguised as an ally to the rag-tag group of rebels, Ares gains the trust of Diana and leads her directly to the heart of the war as an attempt to expose her to the foul nature of man in order to convince her to join him, since together the god and half-god could destroy all of the men easily. After some internal conflict and the traumatic death of one person she loved that didn’t deserve to die (Steve Trevor), Diana decided to fight Ares, and after an epic battle consisting of swords, a lasso, lightning bolts, flying, explosions, and major destruction of all of the surrounding areas, Diana reigned victorious over Ares, finally defeating him. This did not end the war, but forever after, Diana resolved to help people, because in a sea full of foul men, there could always be a Steve Trevor, objectively innocent and pure, with only the best intentions for everyone else.

Overall, this movie was equal parts thrilling, empowering, moving, and epic. The character development of Steve Trevor from a self conscious spy to a hero of many brought depth, the love that Diana discovered she could feel for a man brought hope, and the epic fight scenes and skills that Diana possessed brought a sense of empowerment that can only be felt when someone is truly admired, like Wonder Woman was.