Wonder Woman (2017)

  Normally I would wait longer before posting this, since I just saw it last night, but I don't have anything else in the tank.  Last weekend I went to New Orleans (surprise!) so I didn't watch or post anything, and this summer semester plus a new job has kept me from even turning on my television for over a week.  But, hey, Wonder Woman.

Diana (Gal Gadot) has been raised on the island of the Amazons, trained by her aunt Antiope (Robin Wright), the greatest warrior of the previous age, to fight one day against Ares, god of war.  Then pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) accidentally breaches the shield that keeps the island from being discovered by the outside world while fleeing from the Germans.  Diana saves him from drowning and he tells the Amazons that there is a war to end all wars going on outside.  He wants to get back to London to turn over a book he stole from the German's top chemist, Doctor Isabella Maru (Elena Anaya), detailing a new more deadly poison gas to be released at the front lines.  Diana sees Ares' hand behind all this and leaves with him, over the protests of her mother, Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen).

This is the first DC film that is more good than bad.  There's more that I would have liked to have seen in terms of character building, especially from the villains who are very one-dimensional, and I found it to be pretty predictable, but it was by far the most entertaining film to come out of Warner Bros. in years.  A lot of that is due to Chris Pine, who has always had great comic timing and brings a surprising amount of empathy and heart to the character.  Diana comes across as a little more robotic and at times falls dangerously close to the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope.  I still think Justice League is probably going to suck, but I'm less pessimistic about Aquaman now.