Film Review: WONDER WOMAN: BLOODLINES (2019): Antiquated Animation Harm a Classic Comic Book Story [NYCC 2019]

Wonder Woman Bloodlines Review from NYCC 2019

DC‘s Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (2019) Film Review, a movie directed by Justin Copeland and Sam Liu and starring Marie Avgeropoulos, Rosario Dawson, and Jeffrey Donovan, which had its world premiere at 2019 New York Comic Con.

Wonder Woman, as a character, is having a moment right now. The live-action Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, came out in 2017 and its sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, which will also star Robin Wright, is slated to come out next year. In the age of praising representation of marginalized groups, Wonder Woman is one of the franchises touted in discussions of positive representation of women. Of course, “positive” right now means “existing”; it’s up for debate how much Princess Diana’s highly sexualized body and costumes actually do to bolster feminism and fight toxic masculinity. Nevertheless, DC is riding this wave, and it gave us Wonder Woman: Bloodlines so that we wouldn’t have to wait three whole years between installments of the live-action story.

Wonder Woman: Bloodlines exists apart from its live-action counterparts, resetting at the beginning of Wonder Woman’s origin story on Themyscira, where Captain Steve Trevor crashes while in aerial combat with aliens. The story isn’t the only piece of this movie that returns to origins; the film uses a style of 2-D animation that has largely fallen out of popularity in the past decade or so, as animation technology has become more sophisticated. A return to Themyscira and a return to classic animation: this film feels as if it comes straight from the pages of classic Wonder Woman comic books.

2-D is a bit of a theme in Wonder Woman: Bloodlines, from the visuals to characters to story. While the animation style invokes a technologically bygone era that may effectively lead to nostalgia on the part of many fans, it may also remind the viewer why we continue to refine animation technology. There are some serious flaws to simplistic 2-D animation, one of which is the fact that characters’ facial expressions look quite flat. Un-moving, uncomplicated facial expressions dulled what could have come across as deeper emotions had we seen them on the face of a human or even a more detailed animations. This automatic dullness of expression was used adeptly in humorous sequences; the film’s comedy was of a deadpan nature that fit perfectly with its visually unmoved characters. However, much deeper emotions were simply lost, leading to flatter characters and hurting the story’s ability to unfold in an interesting way.

The story was also reminiscent of classic comic books: one story line, one villain, one problem, and no deep characterization. A few moments that were clearly intended to come across as dramatic were practically laughable in their lack of importance. In one scene, Diana, Steve, and Etta (Adrienne C. Moore) are looking through boxes of evidence. At a certain point, Etta guesses that they should be looking at the boxes on the bottom instead of those on top. This is the dramatic realization of that scene, and it’s indicative of this film’s approach to drama: straightforward and uncomplicated, just like comic books of yesteryear. The movie feels as if it could be broken into several issues, each with its own mini arc, each with word bubbles and explanatory commentary. It uses the kind of plot, dialog, characterization, and visual style that would be perfect for a comic book format.

Whether it works as a movie will be up to fans to decide: are we content with any opportunity to see these characters? Do we love the hearkening back to this story’s artistic history? Or are we pickier with our Wonder Woman preferences, preferring to see Princess Diana as a complicated, real woman taking on real-world issues? I myself fall into the latter category, but it’s for every fan to decide for themselves on this one.

Rating: 6/10

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