DC fans as alot of you will know i'm a huge fan of the companies animated output hell I make sure to watch and review the latest one the day of it's digital release. Even tho I make damn sure to watch them I sadly only own a few on DVD and well one of the one's that I own is oddly enough the film that i'm about to review for all today because before Gal Gadot starred in her hit 2017 movie there was another solo film featuring the same character which people oddly never mention and so here is my review of the 2009 animated film "Wonder Woman" enjoy.
The film's story is Diana is tasked with locating the recently escaped god of war Ares with the help of new alley Steve Trevor before he takes over the world. The plot moves really fast and alot of that is due to the hour and ten minuet running time which means that we don't have enough time to take in what's being said because they have to hit the next story beat which is a shame because if this was say an hour and a half long the story would have flourished because it would have had extra time to develop it's characters and the story would be more developed.
Starring in the film is Keri Russell as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman , the great Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor , Alfred Molina as Ares future voice of Wonder Woman in the newer animated movies Rosario Dawson as Artemis , Marg Helgenberger as Hera , Oliver Platt as Hades , Virginia Madsen as Hippolyta , John DiMaggio as Deimos , Julianne Grossman as Etta Candy , Vicki Lewis as Persephone and voice acting legend and professional nice person Tara Strong as Alexa.
In terms of what I thought about the acting in the film it's honestly was alot better then what I remember it being. Both Keri and Nathan have such great chemistry together I honestly do believe them as friends. Alfred Molina does a solid job as Ares and is much better then David Thewlis since Alfred actually makes the effort to sound intimidating which for a villain si something that you always want as for the rest of the cast they do a really good job I can't really fault them but none of them really standout which in this case isn't a bad thing since there's so many good actors in this film it would be hard for any of them to really standout.
The animation for the film was handled by Moi Animation Studio who did work on Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you've seen that show then you'll know exactly what i'm about to say next because the animation in this film is truly fantastic i'm not going to lie and say that it's feature film worthy because i'd be kidding myself by doing that but for a straight to DVD movie which most likely would have had a small budget holy hell did they make it work to get this kind of animation.
Let us take a second to talk about the main character or at least the title character Princess Diana otherwise known as Wonder Woman. When I was going into this review I was more then prepared to hate on how they did her character however the more I thought about it the more I realised that how this film did her was alot closer to how the live action film did because both films present her as someone who's rash and we see that due to her rash actions something bad happens like in this animated film for example she rushes of to take part in the games to make sure she's the one to take Steve Trevor home however if she had stayed because they establish that she's a good fighter someone who isn't a good fighter ends up dying.
As for Steve the only defining characteristic that they give him is that he's a ladies man and that's it. That really isn't enough to make us care for the character or even make him an interesting character in anyway in the slightest heck apart from the start of the movie he adds nothing to the plot whatsoever and so the film film has to invent ways to keep in the film and to make sure that we remember that he's in the film.
The film does also kind of tackle the relationship that Diana has with her mother Queen Hippolyta. I honestly liked that they did this because for all intense and purposes how Hippolyta was when she was young is how Diana is now and so the two were on the same path put outside forces forced them to go opposite ways when Hippolyta is betrayed by Ares at the start of the film becomes a solider and yet when Diana feel betrayed by Steve when he doesn't kill Ares she becomes someone who fights for the side of right. Even early on in the film we see how both Hippolyta and Diana would act since during Steve's interrogation Hippolyta is stern and willing to do whatever it takes to get the truth out of him where as Diana is more surveying the situation or at least in my opinion she is.
This was the fourth film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line up of films which started in 2007 with the release of Superman: Doomsday. It's honestly shocking to me that this line up of films is not only still going but it still going from strength to strength because it would be so easy for them just to turn out something half thought out but they don't there's care and effort thrown into them yes not every film is good but you could say about any studio that releases a film the fact is the vast majority of these films are good.
We've talked about the hero of the film and so it only makes sense that we talk about the villain of the film the god of war himself Ares. I honestly that how Ares is presented in this film is much better then how he was presented in the live action film simply because here he's actually intimidating and he has a clear end goal which is to take over the world it's a cliche goal that I will grant you but it's one that works for this villain.
As I stated before this film is an hour and ten minuets long so not only does that present story problems it also presents pacing problems. Since things in this film are going way to fast and I don't just mean the story I mean the actual dialog since for some reason whenever a character is telling a joke they speed it up and the same goes for some of the dramatic moments as well which means that both of those moments don't have the effect that they were going for because all your left doing is wondering why the characters are suddenly talking so freaking fast and not at a more naturel speed.
Now then since this is an action that does mean that we have to talk about the action that's in the film. I honestly feel that the action in the film was really good they actually got away with alot of violence that you just wouldn't see today you see characters bleed alot like even more so then what you would expect for a PG13 film (yes I checked this film was rated PG13) I honestly feel that the action was really fun and was everything that I want in an animated comic book action movie which for me at least is a very good thing.
Overall out of the two animated films featuring Wonder Woman that have been released the other of course being Wonder Woman: Bloodlines this one is easily the best one. That being said it does have alot of issues all of which i've mentioned and that's a shame because honestly this is my favourite of the whjole DC Universe Animated Original Movies lineup and so this film gets a 7 out of 10 from me.