A Reel Review: WONDER WOMAN 1984

For nearly a decade, the Warner Bros. produced films based on the famed characters from DC Comics have had a routine of one-step-forward, two-steps-backward. In 2017, director Patty Jenkins and actress Gal Gadot brought the franchise forward with the phenomenal WONDER WOMAN. Since then, there’s been a few stepping-sideways films, along with the 2017 disaster of JUSTICE LEAGUE which is now being annoyingly recut into a TV series. For Jenkins, Gadot, and WB, the pressure is on to pick up the DC scraps and take things forward once again. 

 

Nearly 70 years after the events of the first film, Diana/Wonder Woman (Gadot), is fighting crime while retaining her secret identity, while still mourning the loss of her love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). Diana encounters a mystical stone with the power to grant wishes, which falls into the hands of insecure geologist Barbara (Kristen Wiig) and eventually to Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), a struggling businessman with sights on owning all of the world’s oil…and more. 

 

Superhero films tend to ask us to suspend a lot of disbelief, because after all, we are almost always dealing with high fantasy and sci-fi. Even by those standards, WW84 pushes how much we are willing to buy into. The wishing-stone that can grant endless wishes when being touched is hokey but okay at first, but then things get complicated when Lord manages to turn himself into the stone, meaning anyone who touches him and makes a wish gets it granted. Things get further out-there when Diana wishes Steve back, which happens by way of Steve’s soul inhabiting the body of some random dude. It’s high-concept stuff, most of which isn’t explained much and just taken at face-value. There’s a lot of lazy scriptwriting happening, and characters move from place to place with not much time for explanation. 

 

And that laziness leads to many omissions that derails WW84. Diana and Steve, our supposed heroes, have no concern whatsoever for the soul of the guy that has just been obliterated in favor of Steve’s soul. And the hits just keep on coming; Diana and Steve steal a jet from the Smithsonian which apparently was kept in exhibit with plenty of fuel to make it to Cairo and back, Diana makes a big deal out of her ancient armor which is supposed to be invincible and yet gets torn apart in under two minutes, Lord seems to know more about the wishing stone than Diana or Barbara…two people who are experts in history, and the rules for having wishes granted go out the window as Lord is able to grant wishes to people from thousands of miles away. The film is packed with inaccuracies and breakage of its own rules and boundaries. 

 

Director Patty Jenkins makes a great-looking film, and some of the action-sequences are well executed. The CGI however is crap and sticks out like a sore thumb, with the effects for Barbara’s transformation into Cheetah a lowlight (think CATS all over again). Hans Zimmer’s score is excellent, but the time-setting of 1984 is worthless…as the time-period does not play into the plot at all and serves only as a set-dressing. 

 

Acting is okay. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is fantastic; does all the physical work well and hits her emotional beats perfectly. Chris Pine is passable, but Kristen Wiig just feels out of place. Pedro Pascal turns up the cheese and is basically a cartoon character. The biggest problem with his character is that he is a Trump-clone, which dates the film to this era. 

 

The finale comes by way of another CGI headache and an overly-long preachy speech by Diana to the world. The credits include a bonus scene which is sure to have fans screaming…only for us all to realize that was a cherry on top of a turd. After the near-miracle that was the first WONDER WOMAN film, this follow-up nearly feels like a parody; with bad acting, effects, and a script with more shortcuts than a barber shop. Perhaps a recut may fix things, but let’s not give them any ideas. 

 

BOTTOM LINE: Fuck it