Early ‘Wonder Woman’ Reviews Give It The Best Rotten Tomatoes Score Of Any DC Live-Action Film

There was a lot of speculation about whether a live-action movie based solely on DC’s most prominent female figure could get the job done and hit all the right notes of a summer blockbuster. Fortunately for DC, it would appear that speculation is currently being ground to dust. As we approach Wonder Woman’s weekend release, its early reviews have earned it the best Rotten Tomatoes score among critics of any DC live-action movie.

The numbers were pulled directly from the Wonder Woman page on Rotten Tomatoes where, at the time of this writing, the film currently enjoys a 96 percent rating, topping its closest competitor, Batman: The Dark Knight, which sits at 94 percent. Although user ratings won’t come up until next week when the film is available to the public in theaters, 99 percent of over 48,000 users have also chimed in on Rotten Tomatoes to say they want to see the movie.

It should be noted that it’s still early yet. Obviously, these opinions regarding Wonder Woman haven’t gone further than the review of professional critics, and it certainly doesn’t have as many reviews as The Dark Knight does with so little time having passed yet. For measure, Wonder Woman currently holds a little over 50 critical reviews, whereas The Dark Knight has over 300 similarly classified reviews and an audience score affecting its numbers. There’s still a lot of time left to see how that fluctuates as more critics and the general audience chime in on Wonder Woman.

That said, it certainly also points to an upturn for live-action DC films as well. DC has been fumbling quite a bit since the 2008 release of Watchmen. Green Lantern, Man of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice have all seen middling to low Rotten Tomatoes scores and overall critical reviews. The third of the Christopher Nolan-directed Batman films, The Dark Knight Rises, also sits in that time frame and enjoys a score of 87 percent, though it is still notably considered by many to be the lesser of the Nolan trilogy.

The Wonder Woman film takes up the task of presenting an origin for DC’s leading lady. The Amazons of Themyscira are an immortal, Greecian-inspired race of warriors composed solely of women, and Diana Prince is the 5,000-year-old daughter of Zeus and the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. When Steve Trevor, a United States Army soldier portrayed by Chris Pine, washes up on the shores of Themyscira, Diana becomes fully aware of the plights in the world of humankind for the first time and ventures out to help bring an early end to World War I. It’s an early take on Diana, when she has little understanding of humanity and how it works outside of the fantastical confines of Themyscira, and builds upon the role of a superhuman female fighting to make a difference in a world primarily directed by men.

Among those aggregated on Rotten Tomatoes who have reviewed Wonder Woman, many have agreed the film is “thrilling and earnest” and applauded the powerful performance by Gal Gadot, who takes up the reins of the titular Wonder Woman, Diana Prince. Mark Hughes of Forbes calls it a “cinematic achievement.”

“Wonder Woman joins the ranks of the truly greatest superhero origin films… It is outrageously bold and confident, insanely fun and thrilling, powerfully dramatic and delightfully amusing, all rolled into one epic superhero outing. It sports some of the greatest action scenes and visuals of any superhero movie to date.”

These statements by Mark Hughes and others like him are glowing reviews to say the least. It remains to be seen if Wonder Woman can keep its steam as it comes to theaters for the general public on June 2, 2017, but the early reports can’t be denied. Wonder Woman is looking like one of the best things to come out of DC’s live-action department in nearly a decade. In the end, even if the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score does end up dropping in the following weeks, Wonder Woman drew enough applause to be the untethered king (and queen) of DC films for the week.

[Featured Image by Warner Bros. Pictures]