Wonder Woman (2009): A Review

A new view of a favorite superheroine's world.

The 2017 live-action Wonder Woman received much critical acclaim, but its success makes it very easy to forget that the princess of the Amazons has been appearing in animated media for decades. In 2009, DC produced an animated film about Diana Prince that took a decidedly unconventional look at the heroine and her people.

Reimagining Wonder Woman’s origins means starting at the beginning, and so 2009’s Wonder Woman opens with Hyppolyta and her sisters rebelling against the Greek god of war. Having enslaved the Amazons and betrayed their queen, Ares sired a son – Thrax – by Hyppolyta and goes to war with the Amazons, who oppose his attempt to gain enough power to rule mankind. Feeding off the fear and hatred generated by war, he appears unstoppable. Though the queen of the Amazons succeeds in bringing him to heel after beheading Thrax on the battlefield, Zeus (voiced by David McCallum) prevents her from killing Ares.

Hera then steps in, removing Ares’ power and giving the island of Themyscira to the Amazons. There they build a new nation for themselves and hold Ares prisoner. After establishing her kingdom on the island, Hyppolyta is granted a daughter of her own blood without the help of any man. Forming an infant’s body from the island’s clay and with the use of her own blood, Hyppolyta brings Diana – the future Wonder Woman (voiced by Keri Russell) – into the world.

Centuries later, Themyscira is a peaceful nation sequestered from outsiders via magic. It is also boring. Diana hates being restricted to the island along with some of the other Amazons, but Hyppolyta refuses to let anyone leave. She even takes Diana to see Ares to prove the point that the World of Men and the island of the Amazons must remain separate. It is soon shown, however, that Hyppolyta herself misses the outside world and longs to re-establish contact with it.

Mother and daughter both get their wish, but not as they had intended. With the help of the Amazon Persephone, Ares escapes his prison after orchestrating Steve Trevor’s crash-landing on Paradise Island. Diana wins the competition to decide which Amazon will return Trevor to the outside world, and following Ares’ escape, she is tasked with not only bringing Trevor back but stopping the god of war.

2009’s Wonder Woman is unique among portrayals of the heroine in large part because it both takes her better-known origin story seriously and considers the question of whether or not all Amazons really prefer being warriors over being women. Persephone openly states that she fell in love with Ares unintentionally, telling Hyppolyta to her face that the “life of peace and beauty” provided to the Amazons was incomplete “without families and children.”

This is a stark contrast to most prior and following portrayals of the Amazons in DC’s animated series and comics, which typically focus on the female warriors’ preference for battle and pride as fighters above all else. Diana herself is the youngest Amazon in most adaptations, with only recent comics delving into other Amazonian city-states where the women traded for male slaves to increase their population. Themyscira is marked by being an all-female paradise with no men and, thus, no children. Since they are immortal, the women of Themyscira have no need for daughters to raise and train up to take their place in the future.

Further distancing itself from prior Wonder Woman material, another Amazon in the film actually prefers books to battle. She takes off in the midst of a fight at one point, hiding behind an overturned cart to recite philosophy as though in prayer. Along with Diana, early in the film she advocates for a reunion of Themyscira with the World of Man “if only to add more material to [the Amazons’] library.” This is a highly unusual portrayal of the women warriors out of Ancient myth.

Even the weaker parts of the movie serve to make it stand out in comparison to its fellows. Steve Trevor (voiced by Nathan Fillion) is not particularly well used or handled, but he does have a number of impressive moments and one or two speeches that are worth hearing. He is also the subject of one of the best gags in the film. Midway through the movie, Etta Candy conscripts Trevor for help with a minor annoyance in an attempt to assert control over him. Though he is clearly uncomfortable with her predatory advances, Steve cannot tell Candy “no.” Diana must rescue Trevor from Candy, allowing him to disentangle himself from the other woman and escape with his Amazonian escort.

Diana’s speech on sexism after this is probably an attempt to cover the fact that Candy’s skill at using her femininity to pin Trevor outclassed her own. Even more likely, she was trying to hide her feelings of jealousy rather than face the fact that she actually liked Trevor and wished she could maneuver him into doing what she wanted as well as Candy did. While the more straightforward and honest arguments between hero and heroine serve Wonder Woman in better stead, it is hard not to appreciate the fact that the writers and directors remembered and demonstrated in this scene that Diana is a woman, not just a warrior or a superheroine.

The 2009 Wonder Woman film takes a surprisingly nuanced look at the Amazons and their culture, something very few writers would be willing to do today. Fans of Diana would be wise to purchase the movie, grab a bag of popcorn, and sit down to enjoy it. While an imperfectly cut gem, it is nonetheless a worthwhile piece of entertainment that will make fans happy – and may even bring new fans into the fold!