Wonder Woman Is The Movie That Captain America Should Have Been
The secret to Wonder Woman’s global impact.
Earnestness is the one noun that sums up Wonder Woman perfectly to me and helps explain why it managed to connect with audiences when other recent superhero films or connected universe movies like The Mummy failed.
Earnestness is not a word that is commonly used these days, but it is one of the biggest things that many modern films lack. They forget that there is honesty and nobility in being earnest.
I don’t feel the need to sing the praises of Wonder Woman too highly, many others have already done that and more effectively than I can. But there are a few things that instantly stood out to me when I recently watched Wonder Woman that I realized worked, and worked very well.
Upon my first and only viewing of the film thus far, my mind instantly jumped to the easiest movie to compare it to: Captain America: The First Avenger. In a lot of ways, Wonder Woman was very similar to Captain America’s first cinematic outing. They both feature optimistic albeit naive characters who are fighting bigger wars than the world wars that serve as backdrops to both films. Both movies also involve the hero organizing a team of special operatives to head into enemy territory to track down and destroy the villain’s strongholds.
But while both films are very similar in storytelling arcs, they are not equal in storytelling quality.
While Wonder Woman didn’t surpass The First Avenger on every storytelling point, it eclipsed it on some of the most crucial levels.
Now let me get this out of the way first and foremost: I love The First Avenger. While it’s not my favorite entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s a solid movie in its own right. I own it and still rewatch it whenever I get the urge. Having said that, The First Avenger did have some noticeable storytelling issues. But since I enjoy the movie so much, I’m not going to point out just the negatives. I’m going to talk about a couple of things that Wonder Woman got right that The First Avenger lacked, and then I’m going to talk about a storytelling point that both films got exactly right.
First and foremost, I’m going to go straight to the crux of the matter and point out The First Avenger’s most fatal flaw: montages. It all starts when Captain America assembles his very first special operative team, the Howling Commandos, after freeing a group of POW’s from the clutches of the Red Skull. Once done, Cap sets off on a mission to destroy each and every one of Red Skull’s strongholds and research facilities. This series of events is of course presented through a montage that quickly slides through a series of events showing Captain America and his team effortlessly overcoming each and every obstacle put in their path.
It’s shown to us in epic slow motion shots of Cap doing impossibly heroic feats and little glimpses of well choreographed fight sequences.
While this may sound all well and good, when actually watching the movie it does just the opposite of pulling you into the story, it forcibly pushes you out. Montages have a place and I’m not unnecessarily knocking them, but they are a cinematic tool that is not to be trifled with.
Let’s look at Wonder Woman for comparison. In Wonder Woman, the story leads you nimbly along from one meaningful event to another, taking care to bring you along for the journey that the character herself is experiencing for the first time. And that is where Wonder Woman splits with Captain America. The First Avenger doesn’t bring us along for the journey, it shows us the story.
There’s a difference, and it’s jarring.
In Captain America, we don’t get a good sense of the character progressing towards a specific goal or growing as a character. All we see is Cap punching his way through things. Compare that with one of the best action set pieces I’ve seen in a long while when Diana rises up out of the trenches and storms the german frontline singlehandedly. It’s a glorious moment that is punctuated by the terrific soundtrack by Rupert Gregson-Williams who is the brother of the terrific Harry Gregson-Williams.
There’s not a moment like that in The First Avenger, or really most other superhero movies for that matter. While Wonder Woman got her moment, Captain America never truly got his, at least not in The First Avenger. (He got plenty of good moments later on.)
Wonder Woman captured something glorious in the trenches scene, and it is a mark that most films fail to rise up to.
The second thing that was glaringly obvious was how Wonder Woman was able to successfully create an interesting and super fun team dynamic between Diana, spy Steve Trevor, and the crew they assemble to infiltrate the front lines of WWI.
The thing that Wonder Woman gets right with these characters is that these are real people…in a fictional world of course. You get the feeling that if the writers had wanted to, they could have told a story about any one of these characters and that it would have been an interesting tale for every single one of them.
In The First Avenger, we don’t get that. The characters, what little they show of them, are fun, but not interesting. I wanted to learn more about Dum Dum Dugan and the others, but the film didn’t hint at any backstory for the various characters. They were just there. The only character that gets any backstory is Bucky Barnes, and his friendship with Steve Rogers is the only effectively developed at the beginning of the story, not during the WWII scenes.
It’s a shame because if the filmmakers would have focused on building out the characters in the Howling Commandos, it would have made the stakes so much greater for Captain America and his mission. But as it is, it was simply hard to care.
Alright, now what did both films get right?
In a word: action. Or more specifically, characters of action.
Wonder Woman is a character of action, and so is Captain America, and this trait is displayed extremely well in both films respectively.
As we all know — even if it’s subconsciously — action drives success. Take a look at Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Why are these two technological figures so well known? It’s not because of black turtlenecks or electric cars. It is because these figures individually drove innovation.
Much like these tech giants, fictional characters must drive action to be a successful and engaging character, especially when it comes to superheroes. After all, that is what makes a hero: someone who does the right thing when others do not.
One particular movie that I quite enjoyed that most people seemed to heavily dislike was Disney’s John Carter which was a critical and financial bomb. Even regular movie goers didn’t seem to like it. But I quite enjoyed it, and here’s why; John Carter — the character — forced the story to move along.
He didn’t wait for things to happen. He made things happen. Wonder Woman shares a kindred spirit with John Carter in this regard, and so does Captain America. They are both characters that insist on doing things their way which in turn propels the story forward and us along with it.
I already referenced it, but the scene when Diana rises out of the trenches is one of the best moments in film, period. But why is that? Yes, Gal Gadot is a spectacular woman and the cinematography was impactful and beautiful, but those aren’t the reasons why this scene stood out.
The reason it is so impactful is because she chose to do something when others would not. Of course it’s totally reasonable to get stuck in the system and let yourself stagnate, but fiction is meant to inspire people to be more than they are. That is why this character moment was so beautiful.
The same goes for Captain America. After not becoming a real soldier like he would have hoped, Steve Rogers got stuck in a propaganda role putting on shows to sell war bonds. While this was all well and good, Steve knew that he could — and should — do more. After Steve learns that his childhood friend, Bucky Barnes, is captured he disobeys orders and goes behind enemy lines to rescue him.
It’s a great moment that shows Rogers’s grit and determination.
As I’ve clearly pointed out, I love these two movies and their titular characters. While neither movie is perfect, one clearly had a better focus than the other and presents a clear case to filmmakers on how to make a proper movie. While Wonder Woman is not perfect — I had some personal qualms with it — they were insignificant when compared with the earnestness displayed by everyone involved.
Earnestness goes a long way in movies, and Wonder Woman has it in spades.
