There’s a lot riding on WONDER WOMAN to be a great success. One reason is to reaffirm the legitimacy of the DCEU after BVS and SUICIDE SQUAD didn’t live up to expectations – reception wise, at least. But no matter what fans may be expecting director Patty Jenkins did not shy away from making the movie she wanted to, and that films centers 100 percent on Diana (Gal Gadot) in every way, shape and form.
This focus even extended to the action spectacle, which Jenkins said during an interview for DC’s YouTube channel plays from the heroine’s point of view, and isn’t just mindless action:
Every action sequence is from her point of view and for her story. And so there was no point in the movie that we ever stepped out and were like, "Look at this extravaganza!"… She witnesses a battle on a beach that rocks her world and changes her understanding of what warfare is. And then she comes to man's world and she sees a war that everyone says is impenetrable and nothing can be done about it, and she says "What am I going to do about it?" So that was what was fun, and it makes it like everything else I've ever done, because you're just saying, "Here's my character, here's the journey that they're on, how do I want to experience that and how do you do it?"
There are a few good action pieces in BVS – particularly the warehouse raid – but I always found the scenes in SQUAD a bit clunky. As we’ve seen from the trailers the scenes in WOMAN do feel a bit more intimate, whether it’s her crashing into the room to stomp some soldiers or striding across No Man’s Land like she owns the place.
WONDER WOMAN has me quite excited, I must say. I really dug her in BVS and so far what I’ve seen from the footage this movie looks like a far cry from the very dark, destruction-filled BVS. The DCEU needs something a bit more straight forward and focused, and WOMAN looks like it will be that film. And then we get back to the destruction with LEAGUE on November 17.
WONDER WOMAN arrives June 2.