Comic book Gal power
FIRST there was Superman. Then there was Batman. Later we were introduced to Spider-Man, Iron Man, Ant-Man and a whole army of comic book superheroes. Can you see what is missing from the list? The superhero world is an unrelentingly macho place.
Well, move over boys because here come the girls with the long-awaited and very entertaining screen version of Wonder Woman.
There have been so many sequels, prequels and reboots featuring the Caped Crusader and the Man (there we go again) Of Steel that Wonder Woman has a built-in advantage of feeling unfamiliar. Some of us may recall the 1970s TV series with Lynda Carter but otherwise this is breaking fresh ground.
The story starts on the secluded island of Themyscira where the young princess Diana (Lilly Aspell then Emily Carey) is raised among an all-female tribe of Amazons.
It is a world without men where the attitudes and wardrobe evoke cult TV favourite Xena: Warrior Princess. Diana’s mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) and her fearless aunt Antiope (Robin Wright) train her as a warrior.
We only realise it is 1918 when a German warplane crashes into the sea near the island. Diana (now played by Gal Gadot) rescues the pilot, an American soldier called Steve Trevor (Star Trek’s Chris Pine). Using her Lasso Of Truth (who wouldn’t want one of those?) she learns that he was a double agent working undercover to discover more about a lethal gas being developed by evil German General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and chemist Isabel Maru (Elena Anaya), better known as Doctor Poison. It is clearly time for Diana to enter “the world of men” and knock some sense into the nations engaged in the war to end all wars. There is an engaging, old-school feel to Wonder Woman, a film that has some of the sincerity and charm of the early Christopher Reeve Superman epics. Diana has none of the darkness, brooding anger or “issues” that now seem part and parcel of the superhero genre. She is a force for good with a burning desire to save the world. She is also enjoyably bewildered by an age of wildly impractical female fashions and impossibly bossy men. Who do they think they are? Wonder Woman milks the fish-out-of-water comic possibilities from scenes in London and there are flirtatious moments between Diana and Steve.
A strong cast includes Lucy Davis as Steve’s secretary Etta, David Thewlis as a patriotic politician and Trainspotting’s Ewen Bremner at his most eccentric as a kilt-wearing marksman.
Eventually the film settles down to business with some extended action sequences set on the Western Front that are heavily reliant on computer-generated effects. The film may feel a little too long by the end of two-and-a-half hours but comic book fans will congratulate director Patty Jenkins on a job well done. She has given us a credible female superhero in a blockbuster film that is bright, gung-ho and fun for all ages. YOU can put Dwayne Johnson in any film and he comes out smelling of roses and that is no mean feat in the case of Baywatch.
This misbegotten remake of the 1980s television series is a shoddy, foul-mouthed affair, staggering between flippancy and bad taste without delivering any fun. Johnson remains as amiable as ever playing