Brow Beat

Wonder Woman’s Final Trailer Asks, “Would World War I Have Been Cooler With a Soundtrack From Imagine Dragons?”

Wonder Woman, the latest romp through the DC Extended Universe, has been sending a lot of mixed signals. On the one hand, it’s from Monster director Patty Jenkins, which means it has a chance to be good, or at least as good as a superhero film can be. On the other hand, it’s part of the DC Extended Universe, which so far has run the gamut from unwatchable to really, really unwatchable. The running question, then, is whether Jenkins can escape from the long aesthetic shadow cast by Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole director Zack Snyder. Judging from this final trailer, which pairs slow-motion footage of Wonder Woman single-handedly fighting World War I with the Imagine Dragons song “Warriors,” the answer is a resounding “who did you think was in charge here, anyway?”

“Warriors” was written for the 2014 championship tournament for video game League of Legends—not to be confused with Snyder’s films Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, Justice League, or Justice League Part Two—and previously appeared in the soundtrack for The Divergent Series: Insurgent. World War I, which killed about 18 million people, was decidedly less badass than an Imagine Dragons song, perhaps because Wonder Woman wasn’t there. To be fair, nobody wants to choreograph a gunfight to “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” but if you wanted to reassure the world that Wonder Woman would blend seamlessly in with the other terrible DC movies, it’s hard to imagine a better way than using Imagine Dragons in the trailer. Some touches—putting Elena Anaya back in a Skin I Live In mask and casting her as a female version of Fritz Haber, for example—suggest there might be a slightly more interesting movie buried under all the kickass guitar, but be forewarned: Ayana’s chemical warfare expert, easily the most interesting character in the trailer, is nicknamed “Doctor Poison.” There’s only so much any one director can do.