Wonder Woman exceeds (my) expectations

The DC comics movie Wonder Woman, starring the excellent Gal Gadot, is much better than one might expect or at least way better than I expected. Of course the film is not aimed at viewers like me, but at least there's something more to it that just a superhero comic romp. Among its attributes: excellent editing of sound and visuals, making this a likely Oscar nominee in the technical categories at least - the various sword fights and hand-to-hand fighting are beautifully choreographed; witty dialog and funny scenes at times, notably when WW steps into the chamber as the hero is taking a bath, and their discussion aboard the sailboat about sleeping side by side, and her arrival in London - like the awakening in The Tempest; a clever way of dealing with the accusations of sexism re WW's skimpy costuming: when they get to London there's much ado about finding the proper clothing for her because she "can't go around dressed like this"; the failure to properly establish the traits and qualities or even the names of the small "team" of talented misfits assembled to take on the German army at its base; and of course the depiction of strong women characters. That said, there's also a lot of hoodoo and hokum about world peace and about WW's origins among the Amazons and about her quest to kill the god Aries - but probably there's no need to try to make sense of the plot anyway. The closing sequence involving an enormous firefight and the heist of a giant biplane and release of a potent noxious gas and so on is technically impressive but for me was far too long - although obviously scenes like this are what draw in the target audience. Not a film for everyone of course but a good piece of genre work that exceeds expectations, at least mine.