Wonder Woman: 10 Reasons It's Actually Overrated

The best superhero film since The Dark Knight? Uh...

Wonder Woman Lightning
Warner Bros.

Wonder Woman is a hit. Not only has it been praised to high heaven by the majority of critics (it's sitting pretty with 93% on Rotten Tomatoes - who'd have guessed it?), but the film has already grossed over $250 million at the global box office. It took four whole movies, but Warner Bros. can finally rest in the knowledge that they've produced at least one good entry in the DC Cinematic Universe. It's a miracle!

Right? Well, kind of. Despite the glowing reviews, positive fan reactions, and all those comparisons the critics have made comparing Patty Jenkins' blockbuster to Christopher Nolan's immensely superior The Dark Knight, it's far from perfect.

In fact, Wonder Woman - for all its triumphs - is severely lacking in lots of ways (many of which are kind of basic). What could have legitimately gone down as a fantastic superhero outing merely emerges as "good," so niggling are its errors and mistakes. It's one of those films you sit down to watch and end up feeling desperate to tweak.

Despite the acclaim, then, you could certainly argue that Wonder Woman is one of the more overrated superhero pictures in recent memory. (Warning: contains spoilers for Wonder Woman.)

10. The CGI Is Pretty Damn Awful In Places

Wonder Woman Lightning
Warner Bros

Superhero movies have a hit and miss relationship when it comes to CGI. For the most part, of course, we're watching things that could never happen in real life and so we're always going to know it's computer generated. In the cases of giant monsters and swirling beams of cosmic energy, what can you do? They don't exist, so we're never going to fully buy into the notion that they're really there.

But the worst CGI in Wonder Woman isn't glimpsed during the fight scenes, necessarily, or when things are exploding. It's during shots of people jumping off cliffs, or falling, or riding horses; moments where it's suddenly super obvious that the actors are on a green screen. And we're talking Attack of the Clones bad.

Cases in point: When Diana dives into the sea to save Steve at the start it's blatantly obvious we're looking at an entirely CG human. When Diana falls off the side of a cliff as a kid and is saved by her aunt, the use of green screen is glaringly obvious.

With a budget of almost $150 million, you'd think the studio could've found a way to make these shots a lot less jarring. It's a film - especially in its first act - that legitimately has you questioning whether CGI is actually getting worse.

Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.