A lot was riding on Wonder Woman given that it was the first female superhero movie since the disastrous Catwoman. Thankfully, the film received universal praise from critics and audiences and was the tenth highest-grossing film of 2017. Though she only signed on for one film, original director Patty Jenkins expressed interest in returning for a sequel. Gal Gadot and Chris Pine would also be returning to play Diana Prince and Steve Trevor respectively. Also, Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal would be cast to play the film’s two villains, Cheetah and Maxwell Lord. After a six-month shoot, the film was initially scheduled for a December 2019 release before being pushed to November. It was pushed back to June 2020, but due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the film was further delayed to December. Finally, Christmas 2020 saw Wonder Woman 1984 be released in theaters and HBO Max simultaneously.
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Synopsis
In 1984, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) is working at the Smithsonian as an anthropologist while fighting crime as Wonder Woman. One day, she meets Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a geologist tasked by the FBI to investigate some artifacts. Both are captivated by a particular stone with a Latin inscription saying that the wielder will have their wishes granted. Diana unwittingly uses it to restore Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) to life and Barbara wishes to be more like Diana. Meanwhile, failing businessman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) gets his hands on the stone and wishes to gain the stone’s powers. He uses his newfound powers to grant wishes to people in exchange for wealth and power, leaving chaos and destruction. As Diana and Steve try to stop Lord, Barbara gets overtaken by her new abilities and refuses to back down. Soon, Diana must make a tough choice to save the world.
Review
Going into Wonder Woman 1984, I was hoping for a film that would improve on the previous film’s failings. Unfortunately, while the sequel has its moments, it’s largely a disappointment that adds to the flaws of the last film. To get into the positives, Gal Gadot once again shines as Wonder Woman, exuding plenty of charm and strength. It’s interesting to see her show some weakness when her wish starts taking away some of her powers and abilities. Chris Pine does a fair job and again has decent chemistry with Gadot, though he’s not given much to do. Pedro Pascal plays an interesting villain with Maxwell Lord, a businessman consumed by greed despite it literally killing him. While Wiig does her best with the material, her character comes off as the cliche nerdy character turned villain. This leads to one of the film’s biggest problems: overreliance on tropes.
After the opening sequence on Themyscira, there’s a mall sequence that feels straight out of a 1980s superhero movie. It’s goofy, light-hearted, and cheesy, but it feels earnest and heartfelt while remaining relatively serious and tonally consistent. Unfortunately, the rest of the film recycles several tropes from the worst superhero movies of the 90s and 2000s. Granted, there’s nothing wrong with reusing tropes so long as you build off that to create an interesting story. While there are a few moments of action and character growth, the pacing is muddy and the narrative is uninteresting. There’s no sequence like the No Man’s Land or the Village Siege sequences to get you invested in the story. For as much promise this film had, it sadly is a disappointment and not a great way to end 2020. Overall, Wonder Woman 1984 could’ve been great, but instead is one of 2020’s biggest letdowns.
Watch Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max: https://bit.ly/3aZRIEi
