Fangirl Friday: Wonder Woman and the Legend of Gal Gadot

Really trying not to divulge secrets, but maybe should give a little bit of a spoiler alert.

This movie is epic in a brand new way. For women, at least. No longer are we standing at the sidelines cheering on the superhero dude in the street. We are the superhero. We are the warrior. We are Wonder Woman.

It might feel like hyperbole to read that this movie changes everything, but set your judgements aside until you’ve sat for 2+ hours in awe of Gal Gadot as she kicks ass, takes names, and does everything we needed her to do.

And don’t underestimate how much we needed this movie to rule. This is the first female superhero to be given a live action movie. Set aside for a moment your Cat Woman and your Storm, acknowledging that they are totally awesome (and dammit give Storm her spin off time to shine), but this is DC level comic book hero with a dedicated 100+ million dollar budget movie in which a WOMAN saves the world. And until last week, this was only a dream.

But now it’s happened. It’s real and it’s better than we could have imagined because not only is Wonder Woman a fearless Amazon warrior goddess who lives by that code of justice, but she’s also spent her life on an island with the Amazons so the subtle and NOT subtle sexism of every day life understandably baffles her. And she holds nothing back.

Her strength is not just physical, she’s thoughtful and intelligent, she’s just and kind. She doesn’t need anyone to help her, but okay she’ll make some friends along the way. Gal Gadot’s performance is superb – a mix of earnestness and fierceness that made everyone in that theater fall in love with her. Not to mention she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. Oh, yeah… and she filmed some of this movie while 5 months pregnant. So she’s actually a real superhero.

Wonder Woman is truly inspiring. It’s silly and it’s trite at times, but it embraces all of that and in so doing it gets at the core of what good superhero movies need: heart.