I speak as an American who believes in civil rights, an amateur film critic, and a modest fan of comic book adaptations, particularly animated ones. And, in all three areas, this pilot FAILS.
As a fan of Wonder Woman, watching this was gut-wrenching. Wonder Woman is an Amazon warrior princess from the mythical island of Themiscyra known for her compassion, trust, and honor. I'm open to differing origin stories and interpretations of a character as long as said character maintains their core essentials. For Batman, this is his conviction to justice and doing everything he can to stop the tragedy of his childhood from happening to someone else. For Superman, this is being a role model of how superheroes should act and the responsibility those with power should take. For Wonder Woman, it is her effort to temper what she perceives to be the vicious nature of mankind (and, let's face it, we don't have a great track record when it comes to peace and harmony). She is a warrior, yes, but only fights when provoked and rarely responds with deadly force.
THIS Wonder Woman, however, is more or less Frank Miller's modern interpretation of Batman: a ruthless, murderous vigilante with no regard for the law or criminal rights. She tortures victims for information on the very hospital bed she put them in, dismisses due process as unnecessary, and makes the bad guys look far more justified in their response to her than they should be.
The pilot often suffers from bad dialog that feels like its being delivered as part of Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" routine. The plot, again, makes the supposed antagonists to be more in the right than our heroine, and the supporting characters are interchangeable and forgettable. The visuals add their share of nightmare fuel as well, with people crying blood and steel pipes going through throats as casually as one could make the act seem. And when Wonder Woman's not being a psychopath, she is at home stroking her cat and acting like every poorly-written female character that you've seen before, minus the sexualization. She saves THAT for her work hours.
And, finally, this pilot seems to make a case for torture and vigilantism as being okay if you're the good guy without giving us any reason to believe our so-called heroine is anything of the sort. It makes out criminal rights to be counterproductive in the grand scheme of law enforcement, having Wonder Woman hesitate giving up a captured adversary (who she choked with her lasso and then stuck with a needle to take an nonconsensual blood sample) because he'll "lawyer-up" and finding ways to make her rampages legal by technicality. After all, if we gave rights to criminals, only criminals would have rights, RIGHT?!
After reading David E. Kelley's resume, I'm not surprised his pilot turned out like this. He just couldn't unchain himself from his usual crime drama/comedy and let his imagination run with the Greek Mythology that comes with the Wonder Woman package, and so decided to meet the two halfway, resulting in what can at best be described as an aborted attempt at a Dark Knight knock-off, at worst a horrible, HORRIBLE crime against the titular character. Hopefully the next attempt at Wondy will be from someone more suited to the task.
And, seriously, who says, "Lawyer-up?"
As a fan of Wonder Woman, watching this was gut-wrenching. Wonder Woman is an Amazon warrior princess from the mythical island of Themiscyra known for her compassion, trust, and honor. I'm open to differing origin stories and interpretations of a character as long as said character maintains their core essentials. For Batman, this is his conviction to justice and doing everything he can to stop the tragedy of his childhood from happening to someone else. For Superman, this is being a role model of how superheroes should act and the responsibility those with power should take. For Wonder Woman, it is her effort to temper what she perceives to be the vicious nature of mankind (and, let's face it, we don't have a great track record when it comes to peace and harmony). She is a warrior, yes, but only fights when provoked and rarely responds with deadly force.
THIS Wonder Woman, however, is more or less Frank Miller's modern interpretation of Batman: a ruthless, murderous vigilante with no regard for the law or criminal rights. She tortures victims for information on the very hospital bed she put them in, dismisses due process as unnecessary, and makes the bad guys look far more justified in their response to her than they should be.
The pilot often suffers from bad dialog that feels like its being delivered as part of Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" routine. The plot, again, makes the supposed antagonists to be more in the right than our heroine, and the supporting characters are interchangeable and forgettable. The visuals add their share of nightmare fuel as well, with people crying blood and steel pipes going through throats as casually as one could make the act seem. And when Wonder Woman's not being a psychopath, she is at home stroking her cat and acting like every poorly-written female character that you've seen before, minus the sexualization. She saves THAT for her work hours.
And, finally, this pilot seems to make a case for torture and vigilantism as being okay if you're the good guy without giving us any reason to believe our so-called heroine is anything of the sort. It makes out criminal rights to be counterproductive in the grand scheme of law enforcement, having Wonder Woman hesitate giving up a captured adversary (who she choked with her lasso and then stuck with a needle to take an nonconsensual blood sample) because he'll "lawyer-up" and finding ways to make her rampages legal by technicality. After all, if we gave rights to criminals, only criminals would have rights, RIGHT?!
After reading David E. Kelley's resume, I'm not surprised his pilot turned out like this. He just couldn't unchain himself from his usual crime drama/comedy and let his imagination run with the Greek Mythology that comes with the Wonder Woman package, and so decided to meet the two halfway, resulting in what can at best be described as an aborted attempt at a Dark Knight knock-off, at worst a horrible, HORRIBLE crime against the titular character. Hopefully the next attempt at Wondy will be from someone more suited to the task.
And, seriously, who says, "Lawyer-up?"