Review: Wonder Woman 1984
Wonder Woman 1984, directed by Patty Jenkins, tells the tale of Princess Diana of Themyscira (Gal Gadot), a super-powered Amazon who chose to live life among the mortals outside her home, acting as a secret vigilante saving the day whenever needed. But things get strange when Diana runs across a magical stone that somehow brought her old flame Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) back to life again. The two once again team up to find out the secrets of the stone before an oil businessman named Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) uses it for nefarious reasons with the help of a geologist named Barbra Minerva (Kristen Wiig) who used the stone to become Wonder Woman, but more “feral.”
This is the latest film (and potentially one of the last) that takes place in the DC’s cinematic universe, and like many of the films that were suppose to come out in theaters this year, this is also the latest to be pushed to streaming due to the COVID pandemic. This film is also the first of many in Warner Bros’s BOLD plan to simultaneously release films both in theaters and on HBO Max, which understandably garnered a lot of mixed reactions. On one hand it is a good way to get your film to be seen by people while theaters in their areas are out of commission, at least in the U.S. (I’m so sorry everyone else), but on the other hand movie theaters are going to get hit HARD by this move.
Only time will tell what this business move means for the future of the film industry as a whole, but I can at least say this with full confidence: Wonder Woman 1984’s a bit of a goofy mess. There’s fun to be had alongside some legitimate good filmmaking as a bonus, but the film as a whole is just a little too goofy to take at face value.
The first Wonder Woman film back in 2017 was a fun, solid coming-of-age superhero origin story of arguably THE female superhero. It’s fun, action packed, boast some good filmmaking and performances, but suffered from being a little too cliched and silly during moments when it really shouldn’t be. This sequel is more or less the same movie, though with some minor improvements and some major downgrades.
Gal Gadot is much better this time around as Wonder Woman. Her performances as the character in previous installments have been a little iffy at times, but now that she seems to have a feel of what this character should be Gadot nails every emotion and thought process behind Wonder Woman effortlessly. The rest of the cast does a pretty good job overall also; Chris Pine gives a good performance, Kristen Wiig manages to balance charming and threatening pretty well (and how this film portrays the classic Wonder Woman villain Cheetah is pretty dang close to perfect), and Pedro Pascal as the film’s main antagonist gives all the right amount of cheese while nailing the character’s more emotional moments to boot.
Patty Jenkins returns once more as director and her direction is commendable here. The visuals were bright and colorful, serving as a nice contrast to the overall bleakness of the DCEU, the action is enjoyable overall, Wonder Woman’s theme song is still a banger (I do miss the electric cello but the theme song still bumps), and the film does do a nice twist on the “fish-out-of-water” story by having Diana and Steve essentially switching roles tis time around.
Now just as with the first film, my main issues lies with the story and writing themselves. This story is awfully similar to the first film’s; a lot of the same story beats are hit here with only slight variations between them, especially during the third act. The writing in this film is also just…awful. This is an issue I’ve had with all the DCEU films so far (especially with Aquaman) where the film just like to splurge out exposition for the sake of exposition. Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth even gains a new power in this film where it literally shows us key exposition and plot points relevant to the story, which I guess is convenient for us.
Speaking of gaining new powers, Wonder Woman here gains quite a few, like the ability to suddenly make things invisible (providing an admittedly neat incorporation of Wonder Woman’s goofy invisible jet from the golden age), but the problem is a lot of these new powers aren’t very well justified. Diana’s not a complete “Mary Sue” a la Captain Marvel or Rey from the new Star Wars trilogy as she does actually have serious flaws with her character that she needs to overcome in the film, but the exposition dump on these new powers does not explain a heck of a lot.
The film’s physics is pretty dang wonky even in Hollywood superhero standards, Hans Zimmer’s score for the film is pretty basic and downright unremarkable at times, and just like with the first movie, the climax is all kinds of corny. The almighty power of Love comes into play here once again, and it’s as stupid here as it was in the first film, arguably more so even.
Overall this was a fun waste of time, but a waste of time nonetheless. You have to give credit where credit is due, but this film does not justify its reason for existing very well. Perhaps it would’ve been better had I seen it in a bigger screen, but when the problems with your film lie within the core elements like your writing and story, there’s no amount of flashy action sequences that can distract from a mediocre plot. People who really enjoyed the first Wonder Woman film will probably enjoy this one fine, but I don’t really see this film making any new fans anytime soon.
Final Verdict: 5/10