Yeah, I know I'm late to the party despite seeing this in theatres and buying it the day it was available at home, but whatever. Y'all are wrong
First (or second?) let me say that I, as a rule, don't watch comic book movies. I gave up on them a few years ago; why bother going to see a movie, and then complaining how how awful it is to everyone? Just let them enjoy their popcorn flicks, and I'll enjoy movies with decent writers.
But man... 2017 was a good year. Wonder Woman, Logan, and Thor: Ragnarok all managed to surprise and delight me (each for different reasons, of course).
Anyway.. WW. This movie was a study in contradictions. On the one hand, you have Diana's hopeless naivete about the nature of evil, and it's heartbreaking to watch her realize just how shitty humanity really is. But then they whip out Ares, and let her have a CGI god-smack anyway
The final battle against Ares
had to occur after Diana's disillusionment, because the whole point is that she's willing to fight to defend humanity in spite of our flaws, in spite of the fact that we don't deserve her help or protection.
Likewise, she
had to kill Ares specifically so that there
isn't some all-powerful God of War out there corrupting the hearts of men. If Ares had remained alive then it would have left open the possibility that our continued wars were simply more of his doing. The fact that our wars continue without Ares' influence, but that Diana keeps on doing her thing anyway, is what I loved most about the character.
The most interesting part of any movie is when a character has to make a difficult decision. And I don't mean difficult in the Star Wars manichean way; "Give this orphan a puppy or cut out their kidney" isn't exactly a tough decision, no matter what Knights of the Old Republic would have you believe. Good and evil are more subtle than that, and humanity is more complex. Wonder Woman (the movie) embraces that complexity by showing that killing the "villain" doesn't end evil and doesn't "save the world." It also admits that sometimes killing the villain is exactly what's needed.
(Case in point: Dr Poison standing ahead and to WW's left, WW holding a tank. "You're wrong about them," she says to Ares, then throws the tank - where? - ahead and to her left. She tells the villain he's wrong about humans being evil and then drops a tank on Dr Poison anyway. Because even if humanity on the whole isn't wholly evil {or wholly good}, there are individuals who lean more to one side than another).
While I skipped out on Justice League (it looks like an Avengers knock off, "This guy is evil because he punches really hard! We need to punch him even HARDER!"), I saw enough bits and pieces of both Suicide Squad and Dawn of Justice on TV to make skip watching those movies entirely. I don't expect to get many movies that I enjoy based on comic books, but I'm glad for this one.