Wonder Woman (2017)

Princess Diana, daughter of Queen Hippolyta, lives on the island of Themyscira until one day in 1917 an American, piloting a small plane, crashes into the sea just off the coast of the island. Diana saves him but he is soon followed by other soldiers who want to either capture or kill him. Diana and her sisters fight back and kill the enemy soldiers. A number of the Amazons are killed in the battle even though they are victorious in the end.

Diana, against her mother's wishes, leaves Themyscira with Steve Trevor, the man she saved. They travel to London where Steve reports to his superiors on what the Germans have planned. Steve plans a raid to locate and destroy the a stockpile of poisonous gas that Germans are planning to use in the war. Diana insists on going along with him. She is convinced that the war is caused by Ares, the god of War, and that once she kills Ares the war will end.

After gathering a few people to help them, Diana and Steve travel to Belgium and locate the stockpile and destroy it, but not without suffering some personal consequences.

This movie both lived up to my expectations and did not do so. I liked the characters and the character interactions, especially between Diana and Steve. I liked the opening act of the movie on Themyscira. I liked the part of the movie that was set in London and the culture clash that occurred as Diana experienced things for the first time. I liked the battle scenes in Belgium, how they were filmed, portrayed, and how they played out. I wasn't so crazy about the big bad guy and the confrontation with him.

Ares did not seem like a god of war to me. The way he disappeared and reappeared reminded me of something that Loki or a trickster god would do. The fight with Ares relied much too much on the use of CGI. The best fight scenes in the movie were the ones where Wonder Woman took on the Germans, charging their trenches, fighting hand-to-hand, and taking down the sniper in the church tower.

All in all the movie was less than perfect but it was much better than any other DC Comics movies I have seen in quite some time. It has flaws but I think it was worth my time.