Dislikes (there wasn't much):
There wasn't much i disliked about this movie. The scenes after Steve Trevor's interrogation but before they leave the island dragged, which i noticed because my mind wandered off the movie and onto an issue i had with someone on facebook this morning, because at that point it's like "we know where this is going, just get on with it." But that was the only down-time moment in the movie that left me dissatisfied. Others had enough interesting elements to them to keep me hooked.
Etta Candy was a nice character but quite pointless.
Ares shouldn't have been Sir Patrick, but should've been that British general early on who said that it's a soldier's job to die, just to show that Ares was manipulating both sides of the war. The argument that he wanted Armistice just so he could watch them break it later fell flat for me, especially since he knew about Dr. Poison's work which could've prolonged the war at the last minute, or at least caused a million or so more deaths.
Dr. Poison didn't get enough emphasis, and where did she just wander off to at the last moment?
An editing nitpick is when Wonder Woman remembers that her sword is still stuck in the roof of the lookout post. It cuts away, then she has it back. Now that's not an error, and it makes sense that she had to go retrieve it, but it still feels weird even knowing it happened, like "brb Ares, gotta get my God Killer."
Likes:
Kid Diana and basically everything on Themyscira barring the scenes right before she leaves.
Theme and characterization: it's a loss of innocence story for Diana but doesn't engage in pointless cruelty. The backdrop of World War I helps, you take one of the most horrible events in human history and then you don't have to invent over-the-top evil supervillains, but instead take a look at the little bits of evil that regular folks have been capable of in history. There's good and evil in all of us, but what separates us is the ability to love.
Steve Trevor seducing Dr. Poison. I was the only one in my row who was laughing when he was talking about the destructive power of fire as a pickup line.
Diversity! Woman-led movie, Amazons of multiple races (which works as ancient Greeks had contact with the folks of the Near East and North Africa), along with the depiction of Colonial Corps soldiers, and even a callout of America's genocide of the native Americans.
The No-Man's Land scene. Emphasizing the name is a bit on the nose "No *man*, get it?", but it was so badass and you can see the hope of those poor British trench soldiers, someone who could save them from their horror and single-handedly thwart the enemy.
Good Stuff from the DCU:
The exposition dump was lighter and woven in well.
Everything was tight, unlike BvS and Suicide Squad which had all kinds of junk in it that wasn't needed, it was a nice self-contained story and they didn't lean too hard on the framing device of trying to connect it to the modern day and Wonder Woman's relationship with Batman.
Actual witty dialogue that usually didn't try too hard.
Consistency of message. Not like Suicide Squad which waffled on redemption or the goodness of any of them (or shat all over it in how Harley takes back the Joker at the end), BvS which was again all over the place with too many messages and attempts at themes, or Man of Steel whose critical failure was arguably its misinterpretation of Superman.
Hope for the Future:
It's a beautifully refreshing movie that gives me hope for Justice League. We hear they've been feverishly reshooting, and Joss Whedon's taken over the final stretch of production after the family tragedy that struck Zach Snyder (which is in no way justified by his removal from the project, let me be clear. What happened to his daughter was awful).
The nice thing about Justice League is that all of the weird backstory stuff was sort of absorbed by the inferior movies of BvS and Man of Steel, or the better movie Wonder Woman. It might get stuck a little talking about Aquaman and the Flash, but BvS did work on Cyborg's background so we shouldn't need to go too deep on that, and the dream sequence in BvS along with the post-credits sequence sets up the Apokalips connection.
Now they just need to take what worked from Wonder Woman and shoehorn it in, and they should have a movie like this, where there's nothing overly bad to drag down the good stuff.
