Cast:
Gal Gadot (Diana Prince / Wonder Woman), Chris Pine (Steve Trevor), Kristen Wiig (Barbara Minerva / Cheetah), Pedro Pascal (Maxwell "Max Lord" Lorenzano), Robin Wright (Antiope), Connie Nielsen (Hippolyta), Amr Waked (Emir Said Bin Abydos), Natasha Rothwell (Carol), Ravi Patel (Babajide), and Oliver Cotton (Simon Stagg) Directed by Patty Jenkins (#942 - Wonder Woman)
Review:
Admittedly, there were quite a few films that fell by the wayside in 2020. This was released on Christmas Day in a mix of theaters and streaming because, well, certain studios really suck at releasing movies (as done by Warner Bros, The Suicide Squad had the same thing happen to it the following year). But I guess I was just not up for this particular film or maybe I am just very picky, because how many of you would even guess that there have been eight movies based on DC characters in this decade? This is the sequel to Wonder Woman (2017), which as one asserts, was a character originally created by writer William Moulton Marston and illustrator H. G. Peter. Patty Jenkins returned to direct this sequel along with writing the story with Geoff Johns to go with their screenplay that was written alongside Dave Callaham (each were different from the last film, which had Zack Snyder, Allan Heinberg, and Jason Fuchs). Any chance for a third film were dead and buried in 2023 with the impending idea to explode the DC film glob (as one might call it) into a new and different form. Or something. You know, the first film was pretty decent from the one time I saw it...nearly eight years ago. It was a period piece movie, but it generally made for a useful movie when it came to actually showing what could be done with a character like Wonder Woman for a solo movie beyond just being in team-up movies.
Confusingly, Wonder Woman 1984, makes me see a collision of mush. One only has a litany of questions to ask:
- Why the hell is this movie 151 minutes?
- What was the need for a character who already wished to have the power (and sex appeal) of Diana Prince to then want to become an apex predator?
- How does one wish to "become the stone" and not have it immediately end with them being a rock? What exactly are the consequences for a guy who uses a satellite system to try and suck people's lifeforce from wishes only to see it undone?
- Was their really a need to bring back Steve Trevor but have it be so everybody other than Diana just sees him as some random guy?
- How exactly does Diana work at the Smithsonian Museum - does she just fake wear a wig every few years so people don't get suspicious about how she never ages? (as opposed to the show, which amusingly has her wear glasses when working in the office)
- Would the entire world be so nice as to receive a wish only to renounce it because someone told them about how it might be bad?
- Okay, sure, one only manage to turn a coffee cup and a jet invisible (in like, the span of years), but one conversation with Steve can have her learn to fly with that lasso too?
The answers to these questions are: oh hell, some movies really don't know when to start and end (well, and that doing a Quantum Leap swap without (beloved) Dean Stockwell and Scott Bakula seems like a bad idea). My brain felt dumber watching this movie, which seems like it wants to be entertainment on the level of an 80s movie with an adversary influenced by real-life conmen like Bernie Madoff to go with movie kinds of conmen in '78 Lex Luthor. Somehow, it just doesn't gel well. Jenkins apparently wanted to make a film set in 1984 because of its mark as "the height of Western civilization and society", but I really don't think the film did anything with its setting or goal beyond unintentionally honoring 1980s comics sequels Superman III and Superman IV. Hell, for a movie about people who go around wishing for things that could be harmful (wishing a lady wanting the Irish to get deported to have a heart attack to, well, any other probable wish made around a certain geographic area in 1984), it sure seems tame on not actually showing anyone suffer the possibility of consequences. Pascal's character basically absconds away with his son having totally learned the futility of focusing his time on wishes broadcasting on TV instead of his son (totally - wait, if you renounce your wish to be the stone, where did it go?).
The strange thing about the movie is that it feels so empty in characters: imagine a superhero movie where you can count the ones to focus all attention on (people who deliver exposition or serve only for a flashback [Wright and Nielsen] don't count) on one hand. Bringing Pine around to basically cheapen what was already kind of an odd decision to kill him off in the first film (your milage may vary) ends up just seeming hollow in the long run, because it pretty much just results in the same kind of ending as before in making that fateful choice that isn't as striking. The problem is that without him, Gadot seems to lack that edge in making a true interesting hero beyond "fish out of water", particularly when it comes to (no, really) that little lecture across satellite at the end. It isn't so much bad acting as it is just one that seems off-key. Besides, it is Wiig (first choice Emma Stone declined) who ends up with less to work with, unless you count the attempt at showing a diminishing sense of humanity in the nerd-turned-meathead as anything other than just passive. Comedians can make interesting villains, but this is certainly not one of those times, particularly with a climax that mishandles both her and Gadot. Pascal ends up as the highlight of the film because, well, one really can just play an interesting conman if they set their mind to it, but it only makes you wish there was a better way to get things going than to have the clash of a wishmaster and someone having to remember not the folly of lies but instead to remember why one has sacrifices in the first place among humans. In the long run, it is a muddled mess of a movie, one placed in the exact moment one would feel tired in not needing to see these kinds of movies every single year without the utmost need for being there in the first place. The first film was interesting if not muddled in an okay climax and a dubious idea for being set in the far-away past, this one stumbles out of the gate and never rises to the occasion, which is a real shame.
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.
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