I saw Professor Marston and the Wonder Women...

Friends warned me that I wouldn't fancy "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women", not only in that it overlooks much of William "Charles" Moulton Marston's precise molding of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman and his lie-detector device, but that it was more politicized fiction than fact. 

After viewing the film, I must admit, they were right; though I do wholeheartedly realize that most cinematic, historical dramas slip into clever alteration (e.g., David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia", George Pal's "Houdini"...Tim Burton's "Ed Wood"), but "Marston and the Wonder Women" is a supreme example of cherry-picked and hazy misinformation, regarding a character I've admired since childhood.  

Written and directed by Angela Robinson, the film stars Luke "Dracula Untold" Evans as Marston; Rebecca "Iron Man 3" Hall as his brilliant wife, Elizabeth; and Bella "Dark Shadows" Heathcote as Olive Byrne, the pretty intern whom they (by hook or by crook) seduce. (Incidentally, Marston's granddaughter has stated that the relationship between her grandmother and Byrne was at best sisterly, never sexual: a matter obviously ignored by Robinson's script for creative license.)

Byrne, incidentally, confirms at one point that she's the niece of Margaret Sanger, founder of the controversial Planned Parenthood and one who reputedly endorsed black genocide. Though Sanger's name is inserted with an air of defiant respect, it's never explored further than that, which sets the pace for much of the movie's touch-and-go progression. 

For example, the film never adequately addresses the fact that Marston created Wonder Woman as a patriotic symbol against the National Socialist German Workers Party: that Diana Prince was first and foremost an icon of American pride and purpose and wore the colors of the U.S. in direct response and respect of her adopted nation. Her outfit's coloring wasn't, as the movie implies, an accidental afterthought. (For the record, artist Harry G. Peter was instrumental in designing Wonder Woman's pro-American image.)

Robinson's script ties fetish pioneer, Charles Guyette (JJ Field) to Diana's attire, as well as Marston's popular DISC theory and the related, lie-detector prototype, but it never elaborates on how the mythical heroine became an instant, pure-at-heart sex symbol for servicemen and adolescent boys: for all intents and purposes, a super-powered girl next door they all could respect and adore, while living vicariously through her love interest, Steve Trevor. (I must also note, in this regard, that many feminists, new and old, have struggled with Wonder Woman's pin-up semblance. Reference or projected insinuation to this is skipped in the film. The pre-end credits segment would, however, lead one to believe that the feminist movement, in general, supported the character on all counts and at all times. This is untrue and offensive to those who know the ironic truth.)

Beloved publisher Maxwell Charles Gaines (Oliver Platt) also appears about midway through the story, but was he ever so mean-spirited to our trailblazing, Harvard professor of psychology--so contemptuous of the comics he popularized--to have shown such overwhelming disdain toward a potential bestseller?  (If one applies a little research, one will find that Marston didn't seek Gaines to publish Wonder Woman; for the professor was already employed as a comic-book consultant when the publisher suggested that the intellectual write a story, which then became the Amazon's intro.)

Though we're bestowed a glimpse of the '50s purging of comic books during Fredric Wertham's ridiculous "Seduction of the Innocent" period, this acts only as a throwaway wraparound, with a "Fifty Shades of Grey" theme quickly taking interminable center. With this, the heated merger expands and is supposed to make us champion the trio's free-love cause. However, beyond one embarrassing scene that occurs later in the film, the threesome's activity is tucked away from public view and if by chance it ever did occur, it may not have been nearly as racy as Robinson's depiction. (This element of the film, whether real or imagined, would have worked better by mimicking John Duigan's "Sirens", in which provocative imagery and philosophical discussion are intermingled through a consistent and profound strand.) 

"Marston and Wonder Women" also fails to make full, star-billing use of the professor's character through a creative process. As a result, don't expect to see the "modern-day Athena" figure into any extensive examples of Marston's work, either through flashback or reverie. (There's a lasso-based segment that offers some promise, but never reaches stimulating fruition and avoids Marston all together.) 

This gross omission gives the film the same, stifled construction of Bill Condon's "Gods and Monsters" (an adaptation of Christopher Bram's "Father of Frankenstein"), where the opportunity to present recreations of James Whales' directorial masterpieces never materialize, thus relegating the creator's creations beyond necessity.Why evade the essence of what could drive home a movie's meaning? Why add "Wonder Women" to the title, if there's no substantial indication of exactly how its female leads influenced the DC icon? Sorry, but presenting our protagonists wearing exotic attire and engaging in Eric Stanton antics isn't enough.

Alas, by the time the credits rolled, "Marston and the Wonder Women" left me unfulfilled and discouraged. The film is, I dare say, on a par with those awful, social gatherings I've been forced to attend, where after a few drinks, the clustered SJWs begin to profess that they'd never move next door to a "person of color". That sort of holier-than-thou hypocrisy upsets me and for much the same reason, so does this insincere, historical account.