Superhero Sex

Most of "Wonder Woman" is a solid, light superhero flick, and even though it muddles into generic territory in its third act, it remains the best female-led movie in the genre that I've yet seen--at least until the upcoming sequel arrives and since I'm unsure if I'm allowed to admit how much I enjoyed "Catwoman" (2004). Framing the entire narrative as a photographic flashback is an appreciated reflexive and nested-story device. I love the scene in the alley where she stops a bullet and drops her glasses à la Christopher Reeve in "Superman" (1978). Gal Gadot, having already been the best part of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016), is great, and the supporting cast is good enough. The No Man's Land scene is a perfect instance of superheroic gravitas. The score by Rupert Gregson-Williams helps, including reusing the Wonder Woman theme song. The babe-in-the-woods act is a lot of fun, while the depicted virtue of her anti-war warrior mission during WWI rather puts our complacency in perspective. Yeah, we should be more horrified by battle, more repulsed by ugly London landscapes, indignant of dresses you can't fight in, and happy about cute babies and ice cream. So successful was this that it looks like "Wonder Woman 1984" (2020), as based on the trailers, will be simply gender-reversing this dichotomy between Gadot's Diane Prince and Chris Pine's Steve Trevor.

Aside from the tired boss fight at the end and the occasional jarring cut to a superhero pose after a series of fast-cut CGI shots, director Patty Jenkins and company did well to put everything together--even with the slow-motion shots seemingly required by the genre. Reflecting on past pandemics in 2020, it also becomes noteworthy that Influenza doesn't make an appearance in this Great War drama. Regardless, pity the picture flops after the red herring is exposed, and by that I mean it turns into just about every other superhero movie instead of the exceptional one it was potentially working towards being. Just more bloodless action, loads of explosions and CGI light blasts as the supes have conversations with as much as a mile distance between them (something that was amusingly mocked in DC's own "Shazam!" (2019)).

Especially since having seen "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women" (2017), it's also hard not to be distracted by the general lack of sex in most of these PG-13 superhero flicks ("Batman Returns" (1992) excepted). Basically, Wonder Woman began in the comics as bondage-and-discipline, dominance-and-submission sexual figure. That's still quite obvious what with the sexy-warrior-goddess outfit and Lasso of Truth hugging others into compliance. Nevertheless, we have an island of Amazons with hardly any indication of sapphic sex while we're given more unconsummated heterosexual "love" in the outside world. But, yeah, other than that, it's a relatively-good comic-book adaptation and one that was sorely needed at a time when about the only cinematic female superhero entries had been rubbish such as "Supergirl" (1984), "Elektra" (2005) and, yes, "Catwoman." Now, we're getting a Wonder Woman sequel, there's been a Captain Marvel movie, a Harley Quinn one, will be a Black Widow installment, in addition to the Avengers since expanding to include more than her as their sole female representative. Now if only we can get a great one.