I wasn't too interested with the family friendly daughter of Zeus subplot either, but I really hated how Hippolyta butchered her own son and didn't so much as react to it, let alone reference it for the rest of the film. I know it foreshadows her misandrist attitude, its a truly awful scene in a movie that attempts to maintain a light atmosphere. They don't even specifically explain how her son went bad. Did Ares kidnap him? Did she give up on trying to raise him? Did he grow up with a fair amount of exposure to the world and simply chose conquest because it was more fun? What's more, they ignore it as a potential avenue for drama. Bloodthirsty conquerer or not, I would be horrified if I had a secret older sibling that was killed my parents before my birth.
Beyond that, the gods in this movie are lame. Ares is beaten by Hippolyta in the first ten minutes, meaning that when the stronger superhero, Wonder Woman goes against him, the eventual victory comes across as even more predictable. Even worse is that Hades is once again a Devil expy. I never understood this comparison. Olympus isn't heaven. If Hades is evil, everyone is screwed in the long run. Hades side bargain makes no sense, he gets more dead as the human population increases as they will eventually breed, then die, meaning ever increasing influxes and all Hades has to do is sit sit on his fat ass. Mass murder shortchanges him in the long run. One could argue its a red herring considering what ultimately happens, but that doesn't change that it is a stupid red herring.
BTW, good review. I like how you point out that this movie end up contradicting its message about sexism.
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Hasn't Stood the Test of Time
So it has has been almost a decade since the release of the 2009 Wonder Woman movie and in that time there has been a failed attempt at a Wonder Woman TV Series and a successful attempt at a film adaptation last year with the 2017 Wonder Woman movie so how does this adaptation of Wonder Woman hold up to the 2017 Wonder Woman. Simply put, I don't think the former holds a candle to the latter.
There are a number of issues with the 2009 film, not the least of which being the rather poor writing of Diana herself in the film. In the 2017 film Diana is presented as a wide eyed idlest who sees the best in people and who is willing to go out onto the battle field because she feels it's the most she can do. Diana in the 09 film is a rather arrogant person who spends most of her time complaining how much she dislikes the world of man and who's first and last resort to solving any problem is now and always with violence making a number of her scenes hard to sit through.
There's also the matter of the films message. In the 2017 movie the message is sometimes people do horrible things but they are still worth fighting for regardless because there are good people who, like Diana, seek to do the right thing because it's the right thing. The message of the 09 film is not all men are sexist perverts who are only capable of ruining the world. The problem here is that every single male character in this film is either a pervert, sexist and only capable of ruining the world.
The only male characters of any signifigants in the 09 film is Steve Trevor, who spends most of the film trying to get into Diana's pants, and Ares, who is trying to destroy the world. The only other male characters we meet are a few thugs who try to mug Steven and Diana so the message of the film comes off as hollow while the message of the 2017 film remains rather nuanced due in large part to how limited Ares role is in that film.
The film isn't without it's strengths through, I do like how they kept closer to Diana's origin story as I am not a fan of the Daughter of Zeus plot from the New 52, I do like the final battle in this film a little bit more then the 2017 movie and the acting is good overall. However, for me the flaws of this film kept me from enjoying it as much as the 2017 movie and on the whole I just don't think its really aged that well.