Comicsgirl

Wonder Woman Buy at Amazon

Reviews of the animated Wonder Woman movie are all over. Wired.com liked it, saying it tackles the issue of sex (in all its forms) well. A.V. Club gives it a B and concludes “Too bad it isn’t a series pilot.”

Jezebel.com writer Dodai, however, wonders “Or do we ignore the film in protest of a strong woman being shoved in an animated, straight-to-DVD ghetto?”

I don’t agree with that. Certainly, it’s a straight-to-DVD movie, which sometimes means bad things, but in this case, I think it’s irrelevant. This wasn’t ever intended to be a theatrical release. As for the animation thing … well, why does that matter? I think animation is much more suited to telling comic book stories effectively than live action. I think we need to get away from the whole “animation” means “children” (look, it worked with comics! Sort of!). I’d much rather have an awesome animated Wonder Woman movie than a mediocre live-action one.

I was never really a Wonder Woman fan, but she’s a fun character with a colorful history. I’m looking forward to seeing this.

Garth Franklin reviews it here. This is one of the most thoughtful and even-handed reviews of the movie I’ve read so far.

I am not going to be running out to see Watchmen. I enjoyed seeing the trailer and I think it’s kind of cool it got made, but I just can’t find the energy to care about it right now. And anyway, I think I pretty much spent my movie-going budget for the year seeing Coraline twice.

I really liked this from Franklin’s review:

More admirable than engaging, this is a dense work filled with so many layers both historical and intellectual that its deeper meanings are almost impossible to truly capture on a single viewing (making reviewing it under such conditions a daunting prospect). Yet like its most colorful character Rorschach, the no compromise mentality which fuses comic book pulp with existential overtones will ostracize it from reaching beyond a limited but hardcore set who will exalt it as the new standard.

Because that’s basically how I feel about Alan Moore’s work overall. So at least the movie is faithful in that respect.