“I think all girls are Wonder Woman, no matter their background.  It’s all about who you are on the inside. You just have to be yourself.” The quote is from Emily Carey who briefly plays Diana as a teenager.  Both she and Lilly Aspell, who plays Diana as a small, but feisty child, are superb.  You truly believe they could grow up to become Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman is wonderful! I loved the beginning which is Diana's backstory, training to be the greatest warrior along with hints she is capable of something more.  The trick riding alone is worth the price of admission as is the battle scene where the Amazons on horseback armed with bows and arrows take on and defeat the invading German army who are only armed with guns.

The movie is about Diana.  She has grown up learning to be the greatest warrior the Amazons have ever seen.  They all live on a magic island, protected from the rest of the world.  One day, Chris Pine crashes his biplane into the ocean. Diana rescues him.  He tells her about World War I which has been going on for four years and killing millions (It’s 1918.)

 When Diana hears this, she decides that Ares, the spirit of war, is behind the carnage.  She determines to stop the war and all wars by finding and killing the spirit of war.  She thinks if she can kill Ares, the war will stop and there will never be another one.

What makes this movie so different from all other superhero movies is the focus on Diana's personal growth.  The movie is her education into the realities of the world and the good and evil in human nature.

I have only two objections and the first is the mashup of Greek Mythology.  All the names are from Greek Mythology but nothing in WW relates to it.  The Greeks laughed at Ares the War God  and saw him as a bully and a coward.  Here he's more like Sauron the evil behind all evil. The second is that, especially near the end, there’s the big battle and the superheroics. It weakens the movie, keeping it from being truly great. However, there's much less of it than in all the other superhero movies.

I've seen Wonder Woman twice and highly recommend it.

Reviewed by Marian Powell