If the audience last week– which included many young enthusiastic girls — was any indication, Warner Brothers will have a huge hit on their hands with their upcoming DC Comic
“Wonder Woman,” which comes out June 2nd. The LA premiere was at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.
Bottom line: The movie is terrific, just the breath of fresh air Warners needs after many plodding Superman and Batman movies, and the box office failure of “King Arthur.”
Director Patty Jenkins started out the night with kudos for Warner Brothers. “I literally can’t believe this is the first “Wonder Woman” film. Thank you to Warner Brothers, Kevin Tsujihara, Sue Kroll and more for finally pulling the trigger on this.”
Jenkins then referenced the Manchester tragedy. “Wonder Woman” stands for love and being a hero, I want to dedicate this to the people in Manchester; love wasn’t able to reach them in time. “ She noted that some of the British cast (including the wonderful David Thewlis) wasn’t here in LA because, “we thought we were having two premieres,” referencing the one in London that was recently cancelled because of the bombings.
The director thanked producer Chuck Roven (his daughter with the late Dawn Steele, Rebecca Steele Roven, is also a producer). Jenkins talked about the actors, with whom obviously there is obvious mutual affection. Chris Pine (he plays hunky Steve Trevor) got on stage and showed off his singing skills by warbling a quick verse of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” Wonder Woman herself, the truly luminous and gracious Gal Gadot paid tribute to Patty: “The magical moments in you head are all in the movie. “ Pine made the final quip. “Thank you for coming out to The Pantages, I’m here the next three weeks.” “Wonder Woman,” will be around and lauded for much longer than that.
My review is here:
Jenkins gets it all comic book nerd right. Gal Gadot plays the title character and she is off the charts terrific and authentically appealing. This powerful talented actress checks every box. The camera could not love glamorous Gal more. Gal endows her Diana Prince (Princess Diana of Themyscira) with badass fierceness, warmth and endearing appeal. Most DC characters,“Man Of Steel” “Batman vs. Superman” “Suicide Squad” are caricatures, wooden with no believable or interesting inner life.
Gadot changes that. As soon as she came on screen, the audience went crazy. Jenkins smartly sticks to the mythology of the comic book. Rather than making the film all about the visuals, which are superb, she adroitly adds a substantive story and sticks to its true roots, coupled with an old school war movie sensibility and of course the ubiquitous evil villains.
The cast is A plus. Chris Pine plays the ill-fated love Steve Trevor with humor and compassion. Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen as the tough protective Amazons, Danny Huston as the wicked Ludendorff and David Thewlis as Sir Patrick all give compelling performances. At the after party, my friend’s teenage daughter told me, “It was so cool seeing this powerful woman doing all these amazing things.” And that perfectly sums it up. Bravo Jenkins, Gal and company.
