My Top Five Movies of the Summer: Number One

Coming in just before Labor Day and the official end of the summer is my top pick for my favorite movie of the Summer of 2017: Wonder Woman. Unlike my other reviews, I have no serious criticism of this movie other than to say it wasn't long enough, and they haven't released a sequel yet. This was, for me, far and away the best film to hit theaters this summer, and it's probably my movie of the year (although I'll let you know about "IT" and "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" later this month).

I have to address two things about my mindset going into this movie. First, I'm not really a comic book guy from either camp. I don't have a dog in the "Marvel" vs. "DC" fight when it comes to comics. Like I said in my last blog, I'm a Spider-Man guy through and through, but even with that, my comic book purchases were sporadic at best.

It goes without saying that at this point, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a five-touchdown lead early in the fourth quarter on the DC Universe. But "Wonder Woman" closed that gap substantially this summer, and if the suits at Warner Brothers have anything resembling brains inside those empty suits, they'll figure out some way to put Diana of Themiscyra into everything with a DC label. (Watch how Marvel puts Tony Stark into everything to figure out how this is done.)

Pictured: Actual Goddess

My second concern about the new WW movie was the casting of Gal Gadot in the lead role. Seeing early press and photos after the casting announcement left me nonplussed; she struck me as more of a Revlon model than a superhero, especially one who had to fill the well-endowed costume of Lynda Carter, who incarnated the role on TV in the late seventies. Ask any Gen-X guy who was alive in the seventies about Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, and you'll know what I mean.

I didn't see what it was about Gadot that the casting professionals saw. Having seen the movie twice and saving my nickels, dimes, and quarters to buy the Blu-Ray when it drops, I know why they are Hollywood professionals and I'm a philosophy professor...do what you're good at! Gadot is not just the perfect actress for this role, she's the only actress who could have portrayed Diana in such a marvelous way. Beautiful yet approachable, fierce but tender, passionate and stubborn without being stupid or foolish, Gadot inhibits every scene with the luminous innocence of a naive young woman who also happens to be a courageous, fearless, indominatable superhero. Oh yeah, and she's also a goddess...literally.

It would be easy for her role to subordinate all the others, but director Patty Jenkins (hey DC: she's better than Zack Snyder by about a thousand miles) makes Diana part of a team led by Chris Pine, doing a marvelous job of understating his usually outsized personality, that also includes a trio of other unlikely non-superhero heroes whose mission is to save the world from destruction at the hands of Ares, the God of War.

Sounds preposterous? Well, yeah, it's a comic book movie, but at no time does this movie ever play a note out of tune. When the movie reveals Diana in her full glory as Wonder Woman, taking down her hair and shedding her dark cloak to reveal her iconic battle armor as she emerges from the trenches of WW1's western front, it will quite simply take your breath away. But she's not eye candy, despite the fact that she is, in the words of Pine's secretary, "The most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life." She is determined to save the lives of the innocent, and she has no regard for her own safety in the face of that mission.

It's easy to recognize Christ figures in literature, as they've been creating them since Christ himself authored the original sacrifice. But rarely do we get to see a woman portrayed in this role. But we later learn that Diana was created specifically to redeem mankind from the horrors of war, and in a genre where men have been saving damsels in distress for hundreds of years, it's a revelation to see a woman as a savior.

Neither Ben Affleck as Batman nor Jason Momoa as Aquaman would have compelled me to give seeing the upcoming "Justice League" movie even a second's worth of consideration. But with Wonder Woman in the movie? I'm there on opening night, pal.