From David Walsh's review (for WSWS) of WONDER WOMAN:
Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, is a trite, often
tedious, special effects-laden film based on a comic book. The story
involves an Amazonian princess/demigoddess who makes her way, in the
company of an American Allied spy, from her island paradise to Europe
and the Western Front toward the end of the First World War.
Appalled by German brutality, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal
Gadot) intervenes on the side of the Allies and prevents the dastardly
“Huns”—and a fascistic Gen. Erich Ludendorff (Danny Houston) in
particular—from developing a new and devastating weapon. In the course
of things, she also has to take on and defeat her half-brother, Ares,
the god of war, who is bent on destroying the human race.
Wonder Woman passes along a considerable amount of
undigested American and British World War I disinformation. A portion of
the film takes place in Belgium and it echoes the official Allied
claims of the time about German aggression against “poor little
Belgium.” Terrified survivors in a small town tell Diana and her
American colleague, Capt. Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), that the Germans
have “enslaved” their fellow villagers. Ludendorff and the German forces
subsequently murder the remaining townspeople with a new, deadly poison
gas.
In short, the film is not antiwar, it is anti-German. The Americans
and British, for the most part, are high-minded and peace loving,
although they end up massacring more Germans than the latter do
Americans and British. Capt. Trevor says he wants to “stop the war,”
but, in fact, he wants to win it for his side. And “his side”
is identified with normalcy and civilization. Wonder Woman’s supposed
contributions to “peace,” including “liberating” the Belgian village by
almost single-handedly wiping out a German battalion, are contributions
entirely to the Allied cause. She says, “I will fight, for those who can
not fight for themselves,” but, in fact, she fights on behalf of the
British ruling elite and its interests.
Piercing through a lot of the nonsense and bombast, this is pretty
crude nationalist and pro-war propaganda. Does the sudden reemergence of
Germany (and not the Nazi regime) as the bestial, sadistic
enemy have an ideological significance in the given climate of increased
tensions between the US and Europe? Only time will tell.
