Ares (DC Extended Universe)

Warning: The following page contains spoilers for the 2017 Wonder Woman film.

Ares, also known as Sir Patrick Morgan and the God of War, is the main antagonist of the 2017 DC Extended Universe film Wonder Woman. He also appears as a cameo character in Justice League.

He was portrayed by David Thewlis.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) There's no reason for Ares to suddenly become the ultimate monstrosity and true antagonist of the film, and it robs the audience of what could have been a deep and important lesson. By having Wonder Woman kill off Erich Ludendorff (whom she thought was Ares), and learn the hard way the killing the big bad doesn't magically restore peace and that some people are just evil, this could have been a strong, emotional, timeless movie. But, screw realism in a DC movie. They had to reveal someone was Ares and make him the cause of everyone's problems. Wasted potential, right there!
 * 2) His character's existence also destroys all of Diana's internal conflict with herself and erases all of her character development. After Ludendorff gets killed, Diana started to wonder whether mankind truly deserved or was even worth Wonder Woman's help, since there was still tons of hatred and killing. That would have made Wonder Woman one of the DCEU's most complex and emotional heroes, and Ares screwed it all up.
 * 3) As "Ares", he has a poor CGI costume and fails to look serious and menacing.
 * 4) Ares' reveal as the main villain was poorly led up to. There is practically no foreshadowing of who the real Ares is, nor does he have any significant screen time until the reveal, so it comes off as out-of-place.
 * 5) He gets a lot of laughable dialogue, not help matters is his British voice that tries and fails to sound threatening.
 * 6) His helmet gets knocked off in one scene and we can see he hadn't physically changed, so it's hard to take him seriously.
 * 7) There wasn't even any hints that Sir Patrick Morgan was even Ares! All signs were pointing towards Erich Ludendorff, so the reveal that it was Sir Patrick Morgan was a stupid plot twist.

Good Qualities

 * 1) David Thewlis does a pretty good performance as Ares.
 * 2) The scene where he is revealed to be the puppet master influencing Erich Ludendorff & Doctor Poison's ideas can be pretty menacing.
 * 3) His fight with Darkseid from Zack Snyder's Justice League is quite memorable where he used to help his father, Zeus and other gods stop him many years ago.

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