By Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter

As the world’s most well-adjusted superhero, Wonder Woman breaks the genre mold. She’s openhearted, not angsty — an anomaly within the DC Universe, “Extended” or otherwise. So too is her long-awaited foray into the live-action big-screen spotlight: That openheartedness makes the movie something of an outlier. Its relative lightness would set it apart even if it didn’t arrive on the heels of the Sturm und Drang of Batman v. Superman, the 2016 feature that introduced Gal Gadot as the demigoddess who believes it’s her sacred duty to rid the world of war.

Yet as with all comics-based extravaganzas, brevity is anathema to the Patty Jenkins-directed Wonder Woman, and it doesn’t quite transcend the traits of franchise product as it checks off the list of action-fantasy requisites. But this origin story, with its direct and relatively uncluttered trajectory, offers a welcome change of pace from a superhero realm that’s often overloaded with interconnections and cross-references. (A nod to Wayne Enterprises in the story’s framing device serves as a fuss-free tie-in to the upcoming Justice League.)

Had it really broken the mold and come in below the two-hour mark, Wonder Woman could have been a thoroughly transporting film. As it stands, it’s intermittently spot-on, particularly in the pops of humor and romance between the exotically kick-ass yet approachable Gadot and the supremely charismatic Chris Pine as an American working for British intelligence, the first man the Amazon princess has ever met. With eager fans unlikely to bemoan the film’s length or its lapses in narrative energy, Wonder Woman will conquer their hearts as it makes its way around the globe.

Related: ‘Wonder Woman’: Gal Gadot, Patty Jenkins Honor Zack Snyder and Share Sequel Thoughts

Sticking to the basic setup of the early-’40s DC comics written by William Moulton Marston (who, notably, was inspired by first-wave feminists), Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg have moved the story’s action from World War II to the First World War. It’s a change that taps straight into the idea of a female warrior for peace confronting the world of men at its most destructive. During the so-called War to End All Wars, the technology of killing is at a new, terrible level of sophistication. Chemicals are the weapon of choice for the movie’s baddies, a German general (Danny Huston) and a humanity-hating chemist, played by Elena Anaya (of Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In), wearing a prosthetic device over half her face — evil genius comes with a price.

These villains, along with friendlier supporting characters, are drawn with a broad brush, but at the center of the film there’s none of the cartoony kitsch of the Lynda Carter TV series. Gadot doesn’t spin like a top to transform from Diana to Wonder Woman — and her skimpy getup is a more modest and dignified affair than Carter’s cleavage-baring leotard and impractical high heels. One of the best sequences in the film involves Diana’s selection of street clothes after she’s left her island home and adopted the alias of Diana Prince. Shopping in London with the help of Steve’s secretary, Etta (a wonderful Lucy Davis), she can’t believe how constricting and impractical the froufrou frocks du jour are.

Throughout, Lindy Hemming’s superb costume designs are in sync with production designer Aline Bonetto’s vivid locales, contrasting the poetic, not-quite-real timelessness of Themyscira, the all-female isle where Diana was raised, with the prosaic reality of early-20th-century Europe, from cosmopolitan London to the provinces to the devastating chaos of the trenches. Matthew Jensen’s cinematography heightens every shift, while the score by Rupert Gregson-Williams alternates between obvious emotional chords and enriching counterpoint.

By the time Steve Trevor (Pine) and his plane crash into the paradise of Themyscira, Diana has been trained to her utmost strength by her aunt, the great warrior Antiope (Robin Wright). Although those training sequences suffer from too much slicing and dicing, Jenkins captures Diana’s progress from precocious 8-year-old (Lilly Aspell) to teen (Emily Carey) to young woman with admirable concision.

With their Greco-Esperanto accents, the women of the secret island might be refugees from a sword-and-sandal pic, except that they’re led by Connie Nielsen’s Queen Hippolyta and Wright as her sister: fierceness personified. The vision of them on horseback is perfectly right, and their clash of viewpoints over the need to prepare for the return of the war god Ares goes compellingly to the heart of the matter. The Germans who storm the beach soon after Steve’s arrival push that argument out of the theoretical zone with their guns and bullets. The women’s bow-and-arrow skills are formidable, but though they may be favored by Zeus, they’re not invincible.