★★★☆☆

I watched Wonder Woman when it first came out but recently added it to my rental list to watch with WW 1984. I wanted to have the movie fresh in my mind. Sometimes a sequel is so long behind the primary it becomes difficult to say if one was better than the other.

Being old and a dude I don’t remember much of the Wonder Woman story. I remember some of the cartoons on television and Linda Carter in the television series back when we only had five channels and television oscillated between cheesy and ground breaking.

I think we can all agree the television series aimed for and hit the cheesy bullseye. It was the 1970s after all. Television was simpler then. Put a couple of great looking actors in front of the camera, create a thin story line, sprinkle in and end on humor. People will stay for the commercials.

To some extent the movie continued with the formula. This is a comic book character after all! Chris Pine was a surprising choice given he has made a bit of a name for himself playing Captain Kirk in the Star Trek franchise. Gal Gadot is simply stunning. Twelve year old me was very pleased. Twelve year old me had fond memories of Linda Carter after all.

The storyline for the television series was naturally quite different from the movie. This did cause me a bit of stutter and sputter early on. It was really nice that they got female athletes and ramped up the action. I remember the “action scenes” being really cheesy in the television series. Then again, there has been 40+ years of special effects improvements.

Linda Carter Bullets & Bracelets

All in all, having watched this movie twice now I can honestly say “I don’t feel cheated.” Too many much touted movies leave me feeling cheated these days. The last two Hunger Games films come instantly to mind. It’s well worth a couple of watches. I don’t know if I would own it though.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.