Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (2019)

Movie Info

Well this is slightly better…but still doesn’t entirely feel practical

Steve Trevor’s crashing in the waters of Paradise Island changes the life of Diana of Themyscira forever.  Rejecting her mother’s orders to stay on the island, Diana goes to the mortal world where she is known as Wonder Woman.  Diana’s friendship with Julia Kapatelis creates a rift between Julia and her daughter Vanessa that runs deep.  When Vanessa makes a deadly error, she seeks out revenge on Wonder Woman but saving Vanessa means returning to the past that Wonder Woman thought she abandoned forever.

Directed by Sam Liu, Wonder Woman:  Bloodlines is a DC Universe Animated Original movie.  Following Batman:  Hush in 2019, the film premiered at the New York Comic Con and was subsequently released on multiple platforms.

Wonder Woman has been relaunched and reborn multiple times.  Wonder Woman:  Bloodlines provides another take on the character by featuring a combination of Wonder Woman’s current incarnation with the classic George Perez run on the series.  While not really providing something new, Wonder Woman:  Bloodlines remains entertaining.

I spy with my Medusa eye

The film essentially is an origin story for the first part of the movie which feels a bit unnecessary since it has been done so many times, but it quickly moves on to “new” material adopting Perez’s run where Diana is finding her feet and staying with Julia and Vanessa.  I kind of wish it had stayed in this area longer, but the film jumps forward to Vanessa being an adult and in a bad place.  The themes of motherhood and mother-daughter relationships dominate the story in general.  Wonder Woman finds herself at odds with Vanessa as a transformed Silver Swan and other enemies…the film ends with a “surprise” enemy in a post-credit scene, but it isn’t very surprising if you are familiar with Wonder Woman comics.

DC constantly brings in good actors to voice their characters.  Rosario Dawson is the lead as Wonder Woman and Jeffrey Donovan plays Steve Trevor.  Other notables include Michael Dorn as Ferdinand the Minotaur, Cree Summers as Hippolyta (and Medusa), Nia Vardalos as Julia Kapatelis, and Constance Zimmer as Veronica Cale.

Diana…my mother sucks and you are a bad housemate

DC Animated films have always maintained a rather high standard for their work, but it also generally is able to blend in with other projects in the shared universe to give it an MCU feel.  The movie uses a modernized Wonder Woman costume which feels kind of more appropriate for the story and looks better than it generally did in the comic…she does return to the more traditional costume which almost feels like a sleight at the so-so modern costume.

Wonder Woman:  Bloodlines is another fun entry in a solid line of films.  Fans of comics, fans of the cartoons, and fans of the live action ventures will enjoy it.  Wonder Woman proves to be an extremely likable character but still unapologetic that has deservingly earned her mass appeal.  Wonder Woman:  Bloodlines was followed by Superman:  Red Son in 2020.

Related Links:

Wonder Woman (2009)

Wonder Woman (2017)

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)