The reason I waited so long to see this movie was that I wanted to see it closer to my birthday (which is coming up in less than a week).  But, when Michael found out that the movie wasn’t going to be playing next weekend, we decided to celebrate part of my birthday early and see this movie last Saturday.  It was a surprise for me and a very good one.

Side note: It’s interesting now that picking the movie theater is just as important as the movie itself.  One of our favorites is Moviehouse & Eatery because the food is made from scratch and there is always something on the menu I will enjoy.  This past Saturday I had a lobster roll, a seasonal special.  I didn’t take a picture because we got our food well into the movie, but it was delicious.

On to the movie.  The movie was every bit as fabulous as I have heard from friends and the unintentional glance on the internet.  It was empowering without being overly sexualized.  The actions scenes were well done.  I liked the slow-motion aspects of the fight scenes in order to highlight the graceful, yet strong, fighting styles of the Amazons, but the only critique I had was that it was done in every fight scene.  But it was still quite beautiful to watch.

The rest of this post will contain spoilers.  So, if you have not seen the movie, go see it and don’t read below.

Thank you.

As in everything I watch, I always look for the “God aspects” threaded through the narrative, and this story did not disappoint.  Of course, the story is based on the Amazons and the Greek myths, so there were gods included in the plot, but not THE God.

Diana grows up in paradise, being told the story of how mankind came to be.  Zeus created them to be good, passionate beings.  But Ares, Zeus’s son, got jealous and introduced war and power to mankind, making them forget how to be good.  So, Zeus sent the Amazons to reintroduce virtue and love to mankind.  But it didn’t last long, and eventually, Zeus, with the last of his power, manages to wound Ares, but not enough to kill him.  So, Ares would some day return and enslave mankind once again in a great war that would destroy them.

So, when Steve Trevor, a spy for Britain manages to show up on the island, talking about the Great War (WWI), Diana is convinced that Ares has shown up and enslaved mankind.  She is determined to kill him, and by doing so, releasing mankind back to the good that they were created to be.

But she learns along the way that mankind is not all good or all evil, but that each choice gives them an opportunity to go in one direction or another.  And later, she finds out that Ares hasn’t enslaved them, merely given them the knowledge or inspiration to destroy themselves, but that man chose to use that knowledge to destroy and gain power.

It reminded me of the Devil in Job 1 after God talks about his faithful servant, Job.  The Devil responds that Job is only faithful because of all of the good things he has, and if those were taken from him, he would no longer be faithful.  The Devil has no faith in mankind, only sees mankind as a thing unworthy of God.  Just like Ares saw mankind in the movie, as a thing that didn’t deserve Zeus’s love.

Of course, it’s not completely the same, but to see Ares walking among the bad guys, giving them ideas to perpetuate their baddie goals, it felt like the temptations we all face. We have a choice.  Choose love or choose destruction.

Wonder Woman has to decide whether or not mankind deserved redemption, knowing now that they aren’t forced to make these bad decisions.  And in the end, she chooses to love, and with that love, a chance for salvation for mankind from their own destructive choices.  Again, it’s easy to see those correlations within our own Christian narrative.  Not completely the same, of course.  Wonder Woman is not Jesus, but still love seeing these themes repeated throughout the story.

It is, indeed, a beautiful story and a beautiful film.  I highly recommend seeing it on the big screen. But if you don’t get the chance to see it in the theaters, then I would also recommend seeing it when it comes out on DVD.  This is definitely a movie I will want to own digitally!