Wonder Woman - Revisited

My wife and I saw the Wonder Woman movie when it came out in the theatres and last night we re-watched it at home, this time with our kids. My original thoughts about the movie were only reinforced.

I will tell you what my kids thought of Wonder Woman. They absolutely loved it. It is not often that our son and two daughters agree that a movie is good. Our daughter Emma thought it was the best movie that she had ever seen. I think she really appreciated the strong female lead.

Now my thoughts.

First the negative. I picked up on this in the theatre but was reminded of it as we watched it at home. I found the CGI really disappointing. There were times that the CGI Wonder Woman in the action scenes looked very cartoony. I was hoping that a smaller screen would make it look better but I was wrong. I thought it was some of the worst CGI of recent superhero movies.

Now the positive. The story and the characters had heart. I invested in the characters and cared about what they believed and what they did. Gal Gadot was able to blend both strength and innocence into something that felt very natural. Chris Pine made a likeable Steve Trevor, who was brave but not patronizing (overly) toward Wonder Woman.

Most often, blockbuster movies have great CGI but not much heart. Wonder Woman was the opposite. If some CGI quality is sacrificed for a movie with heart, I would prefer that to the alternative.