Chris At The Pictures

Wonder’s the word, alright. Patty Jenkins brings a pop-culture icon to the screen in grin-broadening fashion with this electrifying and earnest superhero film that aims to expand the DC cinematic universe. Thankfully, Wonder Woman’s part in building the latter is small, taking a step away from the stodgy forward-planning of films past to tell a singular, self-contained story (imagine that!). Its larger and more important contribution to the world is to finally deliver a female-led, female-directed megabudget film that puts to rest both the nightmare of Catwoman or Elektra, and the pig-headed mindset that audiences don’t want to see films made by, for, and starring women.

Gal Gadot (returning from her brief appearance in Batman V Superman) plays our heroine, Diana, an Amazonian warrior of the all-female utopia, Themyscira. Their peace is shattered when pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) takes a tailspin into their paradise, explaining that the wider world is engulfed in the Great War. Believing the God Aires has poisoned the minds of humanity into committing such atrocities, Diana decides to leave her home, despite the express wishes of her mother, Hippolyta (a fiercely tiaraed Connie Nielsen). Nevertheless, she persists, taking command of her people’s most powerful weapons and following Steve back to the pointedly termed “world of men”.

Her values are soon challenged by the prejudices and practices of 20^th century London, as well as the sinister plotting of German General Ludendorff (Danny Huston, wearing his best sneer) and his scientist accomplice, Dr. Maru (Elena Anaya). They plan to unleash a new form of gas to scupper the oncoming armistice, so – after some smartly funny fish-out-of-water escapades in London – Diana, Steve and his hand-picked gang set off to the Western front. At this point, the film threatens to stick Diana in the backseat while Steve and the trio (engagingly played by Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock and Saïd Taghmaoui) momentarily take centre stage. This is one of few points where the pace limps somewhat, but how refreshing that it’s in service of character building rather than crash-bang-wallop.

Other pitfalls (due to genre and period) can’t quite be avoided. The special effects occasionally overwhelm and comparisons to Captain America: The First Avenger are in abundance, but they’re momentary setbacks that can’t harm the film’s feminist message. No matter how broad the strokes, the statement feels genuine and direct, and the moment when Diana climbs into No Man’s Land is unspeakably powerful. It’s a set piece that feels long overdue, delivering on a spectacular and emotional level that no amount of trailer footage can spoil. If Gadot batting away bullets can bring a tear to my eye, I can only imagine what it’ll mean to an entire generation of young girls.

Jenkins proves a confident action director in these sparse but thrilling sequences of derring-do, shedding the gawping male gaze and murky composition of her contemporaries. Cinematographer Matthew Jensen streamlines the Snyder aesthetic into something appropriate (it’s several shades brighter, but doesn’t let up on the speed-ramps and slow-mo), and composer Rupert Gregson-Williams proves me right about that signature guitar riff: it's a killer cue, and works incredibly well when embraced by a full score.

Tom Holkenborg’s leitmotif is the only hanger-on from the wider cinematic universe: the film spends less than a minute tying itself to the DC web, managing subplots you can count on one hand and connect without the assistance of Wikipedia. Given time to develop a single central character as opposed to the lead, their partner, their nemeses and – lest we forget – Granny’s Peach Tea, Wonder Woman builds to a satisfying series of emotional payoffs that are all to do with rooting for real heroes, not a brooding bulk or snarky pretty boy (Pine easily deflects any Kirk comparisons).

For Diana is not one of the boys, nor is she a damsel. Her quest for peace is taken utterly on her own terms and speaks to something often spoken but rarely felt in this genre: optimism. Not the staunchly-defended principles of Captain America or Batman’s misguided faith in his corrupt city, but a genuine belief that people are innately good, that lives are worth saving for more than the purposes of reparation or showboating. Batman V Superman failed to deliver on the promise of Clark’s smile at the end of Man of Steel, but Wonder Woman takes up the charge with conviction. When tragedy strikes, Diana is visibly shaken. When her powers manifest, she learns to command them without aid or exposition. When faced with the awful truth of humanity, she lassos the last vestige of goodness available and digs in her heels.

This refusal to go all self-referential or edgy seemed to draw out a smattering of sighs and snickers from the audience, but none from me. The unabashed display of hope and courage brought me back to watching my Dad’s DVD of Superman: The Movie as a child, and Gal Gadot’s performance succeeds entirely on her ability to convey that yearning, that desperation, even, to do the right thing. I don’t believe this to be some overcooked attempt on the behalf of Jenkins, Snyder and co. to counteract criticisms of the series’ dire grittiness, but because the movie honestly means to be so. It left me beaming, occasionally through watery eyes, but never through derision. My prayer that the DCEU (or, Goddess forbid, the genre as a whole) learns the right lesson from Wonder Woman may go unanswered, but it’s one as genuine as Diana’s desire for justice. I’m with her.

This third instalment in DC’s ongoing attempt to establish a cinematic universe takes a break from the usual heroics to give the bad guys a moment in the sun. Having realised that the next Superman may be less-than friendly, shady government executive Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), delves into a portfolio featuring the worst of the worst in order to face the next big threat with her own powerful (and, more importantly, deniable) assets. The diverse group Waller hopes to recruit includes The Joker’s psychotic accomplice and girlfriend, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), expert hitman Deadshot (Will Smith), fire-commanding crime lord El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) and a selection of other scumbags, led by Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman).

With the promise of commuted prison sentences, Waller soon demands ‘Task Force X’ to deal with Cara Delevigne’s Enchantress, her brother (a CGI creation who wouldn’t look out of place in Gods of Egypt) and the beam of energy they’ve shot into the atmosphere for ill-defined maniacal reasons, ala the sky laser-wielding villains of Avengers, Fantastic Four, and even Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Still, sporting unique quirks and a slightly more malleable attitude to world-saving than their usually righteous enemies, the Suicide Squad arrive with a promise to inject a dose of fun into the DC-verse. 

I can already hear readers rushing to their keyboards to tell me that comparisons to Marvel’s surprise smash-hit superhero comedy are invalid, but hear me out. ‘Suicide Squad’ is a nasty name attributed to a bunch of people made to do good, whilst ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is a grandiose moniker for, essentially, a band of idiots and miscreants. The two groups are warped reflections of each other, sideshows to the mainstream appeal of The Avengers or Batman and Superman. 

In filmic terms, both are properties arriving on the scene with a different set of expectations, but ultimately a very similar structure: a bunch of losers are begrudgingly drafted into battling a generic mystical bad guy to the sound of classic pop hits, with a far more influential villain looming in the background. What makes one a success and the other not is that Guardians of the Galaxy was always intended to be an irreverent knock-about, whilst Suicide Squad has been surgically altered and reconstructed after an unprecedented fan reaction to the initial trailer as well as critical exasperation towards the dour tone of Batman v Superman. The intention to change a gritty ensemble piece showcasing the true dark side of superhero movies (seemingly a natural fit for Fury director, David Ayer) into a tongue-in-cheek pallet-cleanser after Zack Snyder’s grungy effort is not an entirely misguided one, but it’s almost totally fumbled.

Before even setting foot in the cinema, no doubt your eyes will have been seared by a selection of gumball-coloured posters and a smattering of toe-tapping trailers awash with cheeky winks and sly one-liners, breaking through the crash-bang-wallop of standard marketing procedure. And, for a brief moment, the film itself appears to be holding true to this promise: the opening movement sees Waller (given an impressively hawk-like presence by Davis) deliver a brief introduction to the motley crew one-by-one, each character assigned a cheat-sheet adorned with neat little Easter eggs and a pop song to match. Unfortunately, around the time Killer Croc (a mutated cannibal who devolves into an exasperating black American stereotype towards the climax) is introduced, this becomes less finger-clicking and more eye-rolling; like when your brother gets control of the car stereo and plays 30 seconds of a song before getting bored and pressing ‘skip’.

There’s rarely even a method to this madness: a chunk of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid heralds a scene of Harley Quinn being extracted from her cell, because she’s…um, paranoid…I guess? Come to think of it, Harley’s actual condition is never explained beyond a slavish devotion to her ‘Mister J.’, and there’s nothing to indicate exactly what makes her a ‘metahuman’, either. Then again, the same could be said of Jai Courtney’s weirdly entertaining Captain Boomerang, and, to a far larger extent, Adam Beach’s ludicrously unnecessary Slipknot: brought into play literally five seconds before the squad set off, he’s introduced by an off-screen ADR line from Flag stating ‘he can climb anything!’, and whose defining moment is punching a woman in the face because ‘she had a mouth on her’. 

When the film realises you’re already tiring of these people, it cuts back to an enlarged cameo by Jared Leto’s much touted interpretation of The Joker. Our reward for sitting through months of method-acting publicity tripe is little over three minutes of screen-time, during which Leto rasps and cackles and wobbles around eccentrically…but never actually cracks a joke or contributes anything substantial to the plot. The comedy (the definition of which I brandish slightly looser than the entire squad’s morals combined) is left largely to Robbie, Smith and Courtney, in short inserts clearly added in reshoots (keep an eye on Joel Kinnaman’s changing hair length). 

Smith’s natural charisma breaks the shackles of Deadshot’s predictable, seen-it-all-before redemption arc, and Robbie sinks effortlessly into the skin of Harley. She delivers a near-perfect cinematic representation of the much-loved comic character, but this winning portrayal is often undermined by the films treatment of her. A short scene detailing her capture has Ben Affleck’s Batman giving her tongue-heavy mouth-to-mouth before pinning her down by the throat, and the camera constantly hangs at just the right level to make her hot pants-clad bottom the centre of the frame. This return to sexualised costumes and Affleck’s Clooney-esque delivery of “It’s over, Deadshot!” almost undoes 20 years’ worth of progress since the bums and puns age of Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin. 

Ayer totally, unapologetically calls Suicide Squad “an anarchic, punk rock art movie”. Anyone privy to the cynically constructed final product will be knocked unconscious by the massive irony, before briefly realising that the only daring move the film makes is to make Harley order a tortured and guilt-sodden El Diablo to “Own that shit!", in reference to a horrific act of slaughter he once committed against innocent people.