Written by Mairghread Scott
Directed by Sam Liu & Justin Copeland
Veronica: "You think I'm intimidated, I've won. I'm coming for you, Wonder Woman. Do you hear me, Wonder Woman, I am coming for you."
A common complaint sometimes with superheroes can be the use of too many villains. Sometimes, it's a valid argument but other times, it really does depend on how such and such a villain are used in these movies.
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines is a film with a lot of villains. Too many of them, perhaps but most of them are utilised well enough. The main baddie of the piece is really Veronica Cale (Constance Zimmer) who hid in plain sight, posing as an ally to Diana Prince (Rosario Dawson), Steve Trevor (Jeffrey Donovan) and Etta Candy (Adrienne C. Moore) before her treachery was revealed in a mid credit sequence of the movie.
Veronica admitted to getting the last word in upon confessing of her murder of Julia Kapatelis (Nia Vardalos) and funding the Villainy Inc storyline but her actions also led to Diana incurring her own wrath against Cale as well as reuniting with her mother, Hippolyta (Cree Summer) after departing from Themyscira on bad terms at the start of this movie.
The obvious flaw with this movie was opening again with an origin story of sorts as I expected this to be a more direct sequel to the 2009 movie but once the action takes place in Washington, we see Diana's growing bond with Julia which also created tension with the latter's daughter, Vanessa (Marie Avgeropoulos) as her resentment towards Diana boiled over and allowed her to be used by Villainy Inc in order to become Silver Swan and as an antagonist, she was interesting enough.
Of course Silver Swan was more of a henchwoman for the likes of Doctor Poison (Courtenay Taylor) and Doctor Cyber (Mozhan Marnò) and while all three of them gave Diana and Steve plenty of headaches, it was actually a revived Medusa (Cree Summer) who provided the biggest obstacle for our Amazon Princess as she was brought back to Themyscira and nearly wrecked the place.
While I wasn't a fan of that serum used to enhance some of the baddies, Medusa did make for a formidable foe but her defeat came at the hands of Diana blinding herself and Silver Swan having a last minute change of heart as the two teamed together to take on the big snake lady and ultimately save Paradise Island, even if Veronica Cale now has the means to invade the place whenever she wants to.
As a movie, it's not perfect or not as good as the 2017 live action movie or 2009 animated movie but it's definitely has it's moments. The rapport with Diana and Steve is particularly great and I certainly like this movie's depiction of Etta Candy as a lesbian woman of colour. I did find Vanessa's turnaround somewhat predictable but in terms of characters, Veronica could've been more interesting, two other baddies needed more screen time and this version of Hippolyta mostly left me cold. Dawson did good as Diana though.
- The two other villains to appear in this movie were Giganta and Cheetah (both voiced by Kimberly Brooks). I noticed that no male villain appeared in this one.
- It seems that Vanessa will be staying on Themyscira for the time being, having played her role in saving it from Medusa.
- Nice mentions of the likes of Batman, Superman, Justice League and Darkseid here.
- Chronology: I'm gonna assume present day 2019. I know there was a five year gap from when Diana left Themiscyra to when Cale's plan with Villainy Inc went into motion.
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines is a solid second animated movie with some good performances, even if there was maybe too much of an overuse of baddies. I think Villainy Inc could've been set up a little better but there's plenty of stuff here I hope we get to see continued into another animated movie and surely we're not too far off from an introduction to Circe in the animated movie universe.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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