Wonder Woman really is the DCEU's one saving grace.
Gal Gadot was already a clear highlight of Batman v Superman, but Patty Jenkins' film deserves praise for taking that element and putting it into a truly compelling superhero adventure. Women-led, historically salient and jam-packed with plenty of wit and warmth, Wonder Woman stands out not only as the best film DC have made this decade, but also for its cultural significance. For years, Marvel have 'ummed' and 'ahhed' when faced with the topic of making a female-led superhero feature, and DC - barely three years into their universe - just set out to get it done.
Talk of an overinflated third act might dog the film slightly, but there's no denying its quality, and there's little that could've been done to change it for the better. If anything, WB might've been wise to kick off proceedings with Wonder Woman, eschewing Bats and Supes for the time being and allowing Diana to herald a new age of heroes thematically and tonally distant to anything that we'd seen before.
With Justice League again reverting the DCEU to type, the torch once more falls to Wonder Woman. Maybe things would've been better if it had been the film to launch everything in the first place?
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
