What Emmanuelle Movie Did You Just Watch?

[Abraham Smashington]

Boss Baby. Checked it out to see if it was something Char would even remotely be interested in. It was cute. Would I tell someone, “holy shit you MUST watch this movie!!!!!!”? No. But it was cute. On Netflix if you’re interested.

Haha. I saw it on there and have been tormenting Lesley with watching it. Gonna have to now.

[gravedigger]

Oops. Turns out WONDER WOMAN is fuckin' rad and I should have seen it in the theater. Sorry, Fil.

[Abraham Smashington]

rad is a biiiiiit of a stretch. it's good, but that 3rd act is terrimediocre.

[Abraham Smashington]

Also, WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYyyyyyyy too much speed ramping. For once I was actually annoyed by it because the action was so good without it.

[FilmNerdJamie]

"JOIN MEEEEEEEEE, DIANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" - Actual dialogue.

Seriously. That third act is so Goddamn atrociously bad.

[Captain Russ]

Oops. Turns out WONDER WOMAN is fuckin' rad and I should have seen it in the theater. Sorry, Fil.

Wat

[gravedigger]

Even though it was very predictable/standard, I still liked the third act. Sorry, guys. at least you could follow the action in the traditional CGI-fest final fight.

[Matt]

Even though it was very predictable/standard, I still liked the third act. Sorry, guys. at least you could follow the action in the traditional CGI-fest final fight.

It helps that the Steve Trevor death is done very well and has emotional resonance.

[Anderson]

It helps that the Steve Trevor death is done very well and has emotional resonance.

But she's an emotional vacuum, so who does it register with? The audience that wants to bone Cap'n Kirk?

[Captain Russ]

Did we all watch the same movie?

[Abraham Smashington]

I can't tell what your thoughts are on this movie Russ. hahah.

[FilmNerdJamie]

But she's an emotional vacuum, so who does it register with? The audience that wants to bone Cap'n Kirk?

While she's certainly not anywhere near the level of a Reeve or Downey, there's no argument she's... fine in Wonder Woman. That can't be said about her Batman vs Superman and Justice League performances.

Jenkins worked her ass off to make her not horrible.

[Matt]

Yeah, I'm sure that it took a lot of takes to pull off her 'acting' throughout the movie. She sold his death scene pretty strongly, though.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Jenkins flat-out admitted she wouldn't have cast Gadot if it was her call. She was part of the package and had to work with what she had.

[Captain Russ]

I can't tell what your thoughts are on this movie Russ. hahah.

Skip to the second-to-last paragraph for positive notes.

Gal Gadot is a terrible actor. They did the best they could to hide this immutable fact of life, giving her entire island nation the same broken English line delivery and dialing down their charisma until they resembled toy soldiers. It succeeds in making Diana the most lifelike of the dolls on the Island of Misfit Toys.

All of the action scenes felt like they were all in the same sort of lock-step and didn't really have any impact at all.

Everything was light as air, acrobatic sure, but lacking any real audio/visual weight to it so it all lost a lot of the intensity I'm sure was the goal.

Then there was the lazy ass wire work. They could have taken a page out of George Miller's editing playbook to make those shine but they ended up paced out like everything was running twice as long as it should. Just look at Diana's sparring match with Antiope and it is almost glacial with the wire work choreography. The less said about the beach head battle sequence the better (Diana and Steve literally watch a bullet as it flies past their heads and into the cliff archer behind them. Just...who the fuck thought that would be a good idea?).

Just limp as a whiskey dick all the way through.

The United States of Benetton Soldiers were okay for getting "babby's first pathos in war" scenes out of the way, but still had that bizarre sort of diversity quota to it that modern films embrace at the sacrifice of historical context. It's a sticky situation to be in as the current year's identity politics and inclusion efforts are hammered into every mammal on earth on a daily if not hourly basis. I don't think these things are bad, but when they aren't handled well they sometimes call attention to themselves and can at times distract from immersion.

That said, the chemistry was sort of there between Woodplank Woman and Kirk but it needed something more to really work. I actually felt more for the stand-in villains Dr. Poison and General Tony Montana. As it was, it still felt like Cocoon to me as far identifiable human interaction was concerned. Imagine it was Steve Guttenberg blowing himself up for the alien lady who just came inside him. It asked too much from the audience in my opinion while giving them little to work with. So the final sequences fell incredibly flat when they should/could have resonated. Like it was executed (different war and the one-two punch of role AND gender swaps though!) previously in Captain America 1.

Then Wondy super saiyan's with some of the same effects as those used by the Asylum films, seemingly ice-skating through bad guys to go fight a CG villain with a good actor's face stapled onto it. Remember when Dave Thewlis starred in Naked? I'm sure he tried to forget when he was in his mo-cap leotard.

The real highlight here was the villains before the lame duck reveal in the final act. The only scene that really stuck with me was when they were cackling about icing the other generals using their new and improved gas weapon. It was effective and more importantly, showcasing a human quality that was sorely needed in the rest of the film.

I understand the significance of Wonder Woman's success as a female directed/female-starring capeshit film, but I also think it's been extremely overrated in its watchability.