Sheri Linden

S THE world’s most well-adjusted superhero, Wonder Woman breaks the genre mould. She’s openhearted, not angsty – an anomaly within the DC Universe.

So, too, is her long-awaited foray into the live-action big-screen spotlight: that open-heartedness makes the movie something of an outlier. Its relative lightness would set it apart even if it didn’t arrive on the heels of the Sturm und Drang of Batman v Superman, the 2016 feature that introduced Gal Gadot as the demigoddess who believes it’s her sacred duty to rid the world of war.

Yet as with all comics-based extravaganzas, brevity is anathema to the Patty Jenkins-directed Wonder Woman, and it doesn’t transcend the traits of franchise product as it checks off the list of action-fantasy requisites. But this origin story offers a welcome change of pace from a superhero

Arealm that’s often overloaded with interconnections and crossreferences.

Had it really broken the mould and come in below the two-hour mark, Wonder Woman could have been a transporting film. It’s intermittently spot-on, particularly in the pops of humour and romance between the exotically kick-ass yet approachable Gadot and the charismatic Chris Pine as an American working for British intelligence, the first man the Amazon princess has met. With eager fans unlikely to bemoan the film’s length or its lapses in narrative energy, Wonder