After waiting almost two full years, Warner Brothers and DC Comics Entertainment finally released Wonder Woman 84, bringing back the team from the first movie: director Patty Jenkins, stars Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, with newcomers to the franchise Pedro Pascal and Kirstin Wiig. Coming off of the massive hit that the first movie was, there has been lots of excitement and buzz around this sequel. Also it’s the first movie to be brought to the HBO Max platform and open in theatres simultaneously. A first for a huge blockbuster like this. What should have been a great successor from the previously wonderful film was nothing more than a shoddy dumbed-down version of Wonder Woman and an insult to all her fans alike.
Frist and foremost I am a Wonder Woman fan. Have been for over 30 years. I still currently read the comic and hold the character up to a very high esteem. Maybe that’s why this didn’t work for me as much. I could be “too close” to the source material. Or perhaps I just enjoy good writing and plots that make sense, who can say? I had very high hopes for this movie. From the first trailer and concept art I was hooked. Very excited to see Kristin Wiig as one of my favorite villains: The Cheetah. But within the first half hour I knew this wasn’t what I wanted. This movie is a mess. The plots and theme are all over the place and nothing makes sense in the flow of the movie. Its badly paced with terrible editing. Almost feels like the people who wrote this movie never even saw their first movie. Which isn’t true, because they all wrote that one too!
We catch up with Diana many years later. What has she been doing in the last 80 years or so? Did she help in WWII? How did her mission of bringing peace change the world? These are the questions we’ll never know. Diana is now living in Washington DC in 1984. She helps stop crime and saves people when she can and is seen having police scanners and surveillance, but no one knows who she is, ala Batman, I guess. After breaking up a jewelry store robbery, a rare gem is sent to the Smithsonian where it needs to be looked over by Barbara Minerva, a gemologist. Diana and Barbara begin a friendship and learn of the rumored mystic properties of the gem.
Also showing interest in the gem is entrepreneur/oil man Max Lord. I won’t spoil plots points here, but basically all three characters’ stories come together with this “magic gem” they have found.
Once the movie gets going, we start to see the Max Lord using his newfound powers, thanks to the gem in many ways, mostly using it to grant wishes of people and using those wishes to further gain power and riches. Barbara wants nothing more than to be like Diana: strong and self-confident. We see Wiig go from this meek woman and turn herself into, as she says, “an apex predator”. Which is a line just for fans, because it has no weight in the movie.
And Diana wants to have her happy ending. She feels like she deserves one. We see the inner struggles that each character has within their own little plot. Some work better than others. Wonder Woman’s being the least compelling.
Kristen Wiggs’ plot is the best in the movie, but that’s still not saying much. Wanting to be stronger and more confident, she begins losing her humanity, because of reasons? Thus, making her into The Cheetah persona. Which is such a left turn. Feels like they only did it because the character has to become a Cheetah at one point. It’s so backhanded and out of place even for this movie, it leaves you wondering how and why, when there is no set-up for it all. One moment she’s human and then blam! A half cat woman appears. Never once is a cheetah in the movie, talked about or seen, other than the print everyone wears way too much, because it’s the 80s and they’re all slaves to bad fashion and forced jokes.
Pedro is interesting as Max Lord, but other than sharing the name of the comic character he has little to do with his comic counterpart. He wants to become the 1980’s rich super powerful stereotype by using the magic gem he has found. The movie focuses on him being the big bad of the film, and he is to an extent. But after he starts granting “wishes” for the world, and the world being what is it, a terrible place, the wishes begin to unravel out of control, forcing Diana make some hard choices and stop him for the greater good. I think I just gave the movie more gravitas than what actually happens. But I digress, Diana saves the day and then nothing. The world just keeps spinning like nothing happened. Uh…. Stuff happened! Massive world changing events occur and people remember what just happened and the filmmakers never take a moment to discuss it or even look at it thought Diana’s eyes. She’s like, ok. Moving on. Credits. The movie ends with such a whimper that one has to wonder “did I just watch a comic book action movie?”
Now I’ve not discussed Chris Pine too much, keeping his character vague for plot purposes. He’s fun in the movie. He has his own fish out of water story now, which is fun and kind of mirrors Diana’s from the first movie in a small way, but the how’s and why’s he is back is so stupid that it honestly drags down the movie and takes away his sacrifice from the last movie, making it mean nothing. He and Diana’s story is the least interesting and feels like amateur hour in the writing. It’s insulting to them as actors and us having to watch it.
The action was subpar at best. Nothing new and nothing that made you shout with excitement. Also seems to be a lack of it. After the opening action scene, it goes 40 mins without any action beats and no Diana as Wonder Woman. I’m all for character development, but if you’re going to spend a lot of time doing it, make it interesting. She seems to just wander round feeling out of place, looking sad with long glances into space while drinking wine and just going about her life. She’s Wonder Woman! Do something wonderous.
The movie feels like a Frankenstein movie, with many parts, plots and ideas being stitched together. Some scenes are great. Epic even, but the few things that are great don’t get you through this mess of a plot. They had three years… THREE years to fix or make this better. Is it so hard to have a script written before filming? It’s like the DC Movie motto is “meh, let’s see how it goes”. The filmmakers chose not to. I guess this is what happens when a phone company buys a movie studio and tries to play movie makers.
The movie is all over the place with its themes and plots. And just like Geoff Johns current coming book writing, terrible. One of three writers, but it has his stink all over it. The first movie was an amazing look at the fish out of water trope during the world’s first war. We see Diana learn loss, love and betrayal. Hell, the “No Man’s Land” scene alone is worthy of greatness. Yes, the third act of the first movie is a massive CGI fight, but over all that movie has something to say, a full script for the most part, and I left the theater full of emotion and a feeling that I could take on the world. This movie did my hero dirty. The movie left me with confusion, anger and massive disappointment. 2020 has been bad enough why did it have to take Wonder Woman down with it.