Amazon vs. evil

Somewhere in the bang and crash of what begins as a typical if enjoyable superhero movie, Wonder Woman takes a surprising theological turn.

Saying Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) wins in the end could be read as a spoiler, but only if you don’t have the slightest understanding how Hollywood economics works these days, wherein 75 percent of studio capital is invested in films that are either already a part of a series or have the potential to become one. Anyone with half a brain knows Wonder Woman is going to emerge victorious from her first full-length feature, because if she doesn’t, Warner Bros. won’t be able to include her in the Justice League, DC’s answer to Marvel’s staggeringly successful Avengers franchise.

So, audiences know before they buy a ticket that Diana of Themyscira is going to triumph. The depth and originality of the story comes from how she triumphs.

From the outset Wonder Woman feels refreshing for its relatively unexplored setting of World War I. Kicking restlessly against the goads of her idyllic, Hellenistic life on an island hidden from time by Zeus, the Amazonian princess’s path takes a turn when Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), an American flyboy, crashes off her beach. Diana rescues him, her warrior-women cohorts dispatch the Germans on his tail with a dazzling display of martial artistry, and soon she’s sneaking away from her overprotective mother to fulfill her destiny and help Steve end the War to End All Wars.

Once she gets to London, Wonder Woman’s forthrightness plays hilariously against Edwardian mores and modesty. Pine and Gadot trade plenty of double entendres, but the jokes mostly stem from Diana’s innocence and Steve’s chivalry. When she invites him literally to sleep beside her, he explains that a man should never assume a woman will be willing to “sleep” with him outside the bonds of marriage. It’s a cute moment, made cuter by the fact that this kind of wry humor, crackling with chemistry and wit, only works in a historical context now that Western society no longer holds any sexual boundaries in common.

The PG-13 rating takes things too far when Diana stumbles upon Steve bathing and we get a full shot of him rising out of the water, avoiding an R only by the aid of a strategically placed hand. But again, even here, the scene turns on Diana’s naiveté. And it’s something of a wonder, given mainstream entertainment’s predilection for characterizing any same-sex relationship as carnal, that the movie refrains from giving the all-woman island a gay subtext.

Instead, the tone of the entire film hearkens back to Hollywood's golden age (if golden-age Hollywood occasionally got excessive with the CGI). When we aren’t distracted by an obviously digital Wonder-Gal leaping crumbling ruins in a single bound, Gadot brings a sparkling virtue to the role. Her earnestness on the battlefield is both touching and thrilling to behold. Sadly, we, like Steve, realize that a Calvinistic education on total depravity is coming her way.

Diana is convinced she need only vanquish the right bad guy for order and peace to be restored. Steve knows reality is not so simple. So when Diana’s ultimate enemy, the Lucifer-like Greek god of war, Ares, finally makes his appearance, he doesn’t need much more of a weapon than truth to knock the confidence out of her. “Look at her,” he points to a terrorist squirming on the ground, “she’s weak, ugly … full of hate.” He explains he doesn’t compel humans to evil acts, he simply tempts them to draw on evil already present within. That they succumb, with war and death as the result, proves they aren’t worth saving.

Unlike a past Captain America arc, the theme isn’t a postmodern case of moral equivocating or saddling history’s winners with some transgressions to even the score. Rather, it represents a clear-eyed view of the world in which all—Steve and his gang of good guys included—have sin natures but also moral consciences they must either follow or snuff out.

Diana eventually conquers Ares’ reasoning with a cliché, and a conventional battle ensues; but the exchange hovers over them, a heroic moment of insight in the summer’s best big movie so far.