Release Date: June 21, 2017
Film: Wonder Woman (2017)
Tagline: The world seems to love it, but can the Nostalgia Critic find some humorous flaws to break through those armor bracelets?
Tropes:
- Anvilicious: Invoked and parodied by Scallon-Superman, who exemplifies the DCEU "convention" of ego-stroking dialogue by introducing himself as Jesus.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: The Critic and Tamara-Diana begin the review of the film with the latter playing on an electric guitar.Critic: You may be awesome, but you're not Wonder-Woman-playing-the-guitar awesome!
- Big "NO!": Tamara-Diana's reaction to Malcolm-Steve's death.
- British Stuffiness: The Critic mocks the film having Ares be an "old British fop".
- Call-Back: Department of Bitching and Moaning (DBM) agents Social Justice Peck (Rob) and Vanessa (Heather Reusz), as well as the Meninists (Malcolm, Jim and Jason Laws), from the Ghostbusters (2016) review return to pester the Critic before he could even start his review.
- The Cape: The Critic praises the movie for making Wonder Woman a hero who didn't need a Dark and Troubled Past to motivate her, but instead helps people in need for the sake of simply helping.
- Clip Show: Inverted. Following a trend of reviewing films still in theaters using Channel Awesome's own cast and props, the pastiche of the film stars Tamara as Wonder Woman, Aiyanna Wade as Hippolyta, Heather Reusz as Antiope and Dr. Poison, Malcolm as Steve Trevor, Rob as Erich Ludendorff, Doug as Sir Patrick Morgan/Ares and Batman, and Rob Scallon as Superman.
- Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Lampshaded. As noted under Take That! Aiyana-Hippolyta tells Tamara-Diana that nobody calls her "Wonder Woman" in the movie.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Doug-Ares is horrified at Heather-Poison's idea of creating Nickelback, and has little patience for Scallon-Superman and Doug-Batman hyping up his villainous soliloquy.
- Face Palm: The Critic's reaction to Scallon-Superman and Doug-Batman attempting to tamper with the film to conform it to DCEU "standards".
- Follow the Leader: Invoked — Doug-Batman complains over how the film is so bright and colorful, and suggests it keep in line with other DCEU films and take cues from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Hidden Villain: While the Critic has some complaints about Ares showing up as the real Big Bad of the film late into its runtime — a recurring element in recent superhero films — he nevertheless gives praise for this trope actually working because his presence forces Wonder Woman to seriously think about her stated mission of protecting humanity.
- Hope Spot: The Critic claims he watches DC Comics movies simply because of people hoping that this time they produce at least one good movie, and the resulting disappointment when they are proven otherwise. He's very pleased to discover that Wonder Woman is a subversion.
- Hypocritical Humor: When Vanessa admits she actually liked the movie, S.J. Peck tells her to shut up because he's getting offended for her about how little feminism there is in the film.
- Literal Ass-Kicking: Downplayed. After the Hope Spot moment above, the Critic taunts the booing audience by sticking out his behind with the words "DC Sux" printed onto the seat of his pants, before he gets whipped in the ass with Tamara-Diana's Lasso of Truth, determined to prove that this time DC got something right.
- Period Piece: The Critic and Malcolm-Steve lampshade the film's setting of 1918 as a time where sexism towards women is acceptable, and how someone who is a Fish out of Water would stand out, before the former also notes how refreshingly well the film handled those two issues where other films would run it to the ground.
- Purple Prose: Invoked and exploited by Doug-Ares, who says that DC villains' best weapon is "overwritten dialogue".
- Race Lift: Malcolm-Steve lampshades his casting by pointing out that otherwise, he'd only be playing the "Black Amazon".
- Reconstruction: The Critic's biggest praise for this film lay in how it was not only so unlike past films in the DC Extended Universe, let alone most recent superhero films, but how it is Revisiting the Roots of superhero comics: men and women protecting people and fighting evil simply because they see it as the right thing to do, something the Critic hasn't seen much since the first Richard Donner Superman film.
- Reality Subtext: At the end, the Critic gives Tamara-Diana a piece of cake to celebrate the success of Wonder Woman, only for the latter to reveal that she has diabetes (specifically, Type-1), just like her actress, Tamara, does in real life.
- Running Gag: Scallon-Superman and Doug-Batman interrupting any perceived deviation from DCEU "standards" and tampering with the scenes to "correct" them, before getting a rain of arrows for their effort.
- Shout-Out:
- The Critic, still holding Tamara!WW's Lasso of Truth, claims he is more excited over seeing The Emoji Movie than any DC film.
- Tamara-Diana's exposition as to the role of the original Wonder Woman comics' creator, William Moulton Marston, with the creation of the lie detector, is styled as one of NBC's "The More You Know" PSAs (specifically showing the logo from its oft-parodied '90s incarnation).
- Heather-Antiope warns Aiyanna-Hippolyta that keeping Tamara-Diana from pursuing her dream of becoming a warrior will turn their movie into a Disney film — i.e., The Little Mermaid (1989), where Ariel flees to the human realm despite her father's objections. The latter retorts that it can only happen if Tamara-Diana can save a Distressed Dude from the sea.
- Tamara-Diana stealing the God-Killer is accompanied by the "key item jingle" from The Legend of Zelda.
- Heather-Dr. Poison, with her half-face mask, is compared to an "Ultimate Universe" equivalent the theater version of The Phantom of the Opera (specifically, the Michael Crawford version).
- After Tamara-Diana destroys a chapel used as a German command post, the spire lifts up a white flag with accompanying fireworks à la Super Mario Bros.
- The dialogue when Tamara-Diana gets a Wrecked Weapon against Doug-Ares is lifted straight from Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century:Wonder Woman: I'm going to kill you with my disintegrating sword, and brother, when it disintegrates, it disintegrates!
[sword disintegrates against Ares's palm]
Wonder Woman: Well, what do you know... it disintegrated. - Tamara-Diana refers to Doug-Ares as "Professor Plum", and says that he's about as intimidating as the Monopoly guy.
- Squick: Malcolm (as Steve) is disgusted at his other role as a black Amazon, especially when she starts flirting with him.
- Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The Critic's final verdict. While it is far from flawless, this film is still way better than the previous DCEU films by a miraculous margin, and reminds him of what he loves about DC.
- Take That!:
- Scallon-Superman and Doug-Batman represent everything the Critic thinks is wrong with previous DCEU films eventually defied by this film — dark and dull scenery, dialogue that overemphasizes someone's coolness, and long-winded villain soliloquy.
- The Critic is puzzled how Steel got his own (bad) movie way before even Wonder Woman, one of DC's superhero trinity (alongside Superman and Batman).
- Critic tells the DBM and the Meninists to stick it right away after their whining, before Tamara-Diana demonstrates that she has little patience for them too by proceeding to whip them off with her Lasso of Truth.
- When Aiyanna-Hippolyta tells Tamara-Diana that people may never call her "Wonder Woman", the latter begins to fear that their film will end up like Fantastic Four (2015), where the title was only dropped silently at the end credits.
- When Doug-Ares suggests to Heather-Poison to create a "body-crushing gas", she thinks up Nickelback, much to Doug-Ares's horror.
- "Oh my, that pilot died faster than your 2011 TV series."
- The Talk: Aiyanna-Hippolyta claims she simply tells young Tamara-Diana that she was formed from a lump of clay so she doesn't have to tell her how babies are made.
- Visual Pun: The DBM and the Meninists literally hold fishing rods from which hang placards which respectively read "Anti-Feminist" and "Anti-Men" over the Critic as bait.
