Wonder Woman 1984

Despite its lasting popularity, the 2017 Wonder Woman left a bigger impact than most people like to give it credit for. Not only was it a landmark for being the first successful female-oriented superhero movie, earning largely positive reviews and becoming the tenth highest grossing movie of 2017, but it was also the movie that arguably saved DC from being the laughingstock of comic book movies (which given some of the previous track record, that is kind of sad). With their movies feeling really behind the times and suffering from strong Marvel envy, it was unfortunately common for DC movies to suck before Wonder Woman brought in a new spark of quality, leading the way for movies like Aquaman, Shazam and Joker to continue the ride of new quality material. So, if Wonder Woman was their savior, it’s just too tragic that with the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, it became what it tried to steer away from. Set during the 1980s (which is made painful obvious multiple times throughout this movie), Wonder Woman (played again by Gal Gadot) is still doing her hero work for humanity but the simplicity of stopping henchman in malls is put on hold when a wishing stone is brought to her attention. When the stone is taken by failing businessman Maxwell Lord (played by Pedro Pascal) who works around the stone’s wishing granting properties and fuses with it to gain its power, he is able to grant any person the wish that they desire most. This is proven when Diana is subconsciously given a wish and is reunited with Steve Trevor (played by Chris Pine) who is brought back from the dead, and also gives trod-upon geologist Barbra Minerva (played by Kristen Wiig) the strength and skill to stand up for herself. While this looks great on the surface, like any monkey paw situation, it also come with major costs that start to throw the world into chaos. With Lord planning on stealing the life-force of every person on the planet through his wish-granting and with Barbra (now going by Cheetah) deciding to side with him after losing her humanity because of her new powers, Wonder Woman needs to stop them both before the world is destroyed. The movie, despite having mostly the same crew, same director, and even same cast, is surprisingly far less impressive than its original, stumbling hard with a confusingly botched tone, inconsistent storytelling, ridiculous leaps in logic, messy acting and a vibe that just doesn’t bring the same kind of appeal as the first film.

You can very much feel that this wasn’t a film that was planned out in advance, as in spite of existing within a shared universe where characters can have multiple different movies, no plans were made to have a Wonder Woman sequel until the first film did so well at the box office and plans were put into motion. While this doesn’t have to be the sole reason why the film doesn’t work as multiple projects have been unplanned yet still result in something great, but it paints a picture as to why this movie feels so detached on almost every level from its previous film.  On paper, the actual set-up for the story written by Patty Jenkins (who also returned as director) and Geoff Johns (who also helped to write the screenplay) isn’t too bad, and how it ties into not only the mythos of Wonder Woman as a character, but also her supporting cast seems fairly well thought out. There are fun directions that could be taken with Diana’s character, they make a stupid idea like bringing Steve Trevor back seem plausible enough given the context, the way in which both villains are tied together works pretty well, and a majority of the components surrounding the wishing stone takes what would feel like a confused plot MacGuffin and makes it decently easy to follow. With that said however, the way in which this story is told is abysmal and does a lot of damage to the good will that Patty Jenkins brought to the first film (she specifically took a lot of ownership over this film, and therefore takes the brunt of the blame). Things that should be focused on are glossed over and never given context, there’s a lot of slow-moving, cliched boring scenes that add nothing but wasted time, and instead of furthering the world previously set up and diving deeper into the mostly mature and serious vibe present in the last film, it is replaced with an off-the-walls overly hammy personality that just doesn’t match this character at all. The overall screenplay for this film written by Jenkins, Johns and Dave Callaham in general is just a mess, as it has no sense of development or change, it features a lot of inconsistencies that get pretty noticeable after a while, the movie is throwing so much stuff at you that you just can’t keep up, and it takes what should be a pretty easy-to-grasp plot and makes it feel overly complicated with the various wishes and loopholes and such. It feels like Jenkins wasn’t hindered by studio interference and was therefore allowed to do whatever she wanted, and that catastrophe erupted into what was delivered.

While Jenkins did a really impressive job with the first movie, especially in being able to direct the story and these actors in a perfectly realistic yet likeable way, this movie goes the exact opposite direction in that the directing and acting always feels incredibly off. All of these actors have proven they are capable talents in other films, so just seeing them in this movie with such odd deliveries and such awkward dialogue, it doesn’t help the movie’s already messy storyline and tone. Chris Pine feels like a deer in headlights, Kristen Wiig is just not funny in this movie, Pedro Pascal can ooze charisma and intimidation very well in other products, but just comes off as weird and annoying here, and even Gal Gadot has her moments where it feels she’s just not as passionate as she should be (especially during the climax where her delivery seems noticeably stilted). Nothing is really added to Diana to make the film feel worthy, and her refusing to let go of Steve works nice in concept but doesn’t feel earned. All the stuff that should be huge developments; losing her powers, earning a golden winged suit, learning to fly, swinging on lightning, flying an invisible jet, it’s never given the attention it should, and it’s just used for fan-service. Steve Trevor literally feels like he is brought back just to be the clueless fish-out-of-water so that they can provide a bunch of unfunny cliche scenes and make the whole world uncomfortable with the manner in which he’s brought back (he jumps into a living man’s body who just has to become Wonder Woman’s sex doll without any consent at all, it is wrong and weird and doesn’t make any sense at all). The villains are strange in that they off-set each other in their pros and cons; Maxwell Lord has more focus in the story (despite never being in the trailers) yet is just a confused character that isn’t fun to watch Wonder Woman go up against, and Pascal delivery seems incredibly lost in this. On the other side, Cheetah (despite being a bit too much like Selina Kyle to be unique) has better presence, scenes and is surprising played in a way that would’ve made her a pretty effective bad guy yet is entirely pointless in the grand scheme of this story, nothing is missed if she is removed.

In spite of most superhero films getting better effects, Wonder Woman weirdly had pretty poor visual effects, but the film seems to be aware of this and they do in some form or fashion add to the action and spectacle of the movie rather than be a distraction. Here, they somehow make the effects look even worse than the first, to the point where it starts to look like something that wasn’t even made in the 2000s, it’s incredibly laughable. The action isn’t anything to freak out about either, as while it’s not bad, it just doesn’t have the memorability or impact that the first film had with its action. The tone for the movie is horribly mismatched and seems to want to replicate something akin to the 1970s show starring Linda Carter (who even shows up as a cameo for this film), feeling like it’s trying to be a comedy first, which is something that this hero and this set-up can’t do so quickly. The first movie had levity, but it was earned through the movie’s harsher gritty take with real world issues, it was a serious movie with funny moments. So, doing the opposite in the sequel doesn’t have to fail, but it was not handled well with no funny lines, weirdly directed acting and no real sense of urgency of seriousness which prevents people from really getting invested in anything.

When Wonder Woman succeeded, people were thrilled to finally have a great female-led superhero movie to back up and it was made even better when it brought DC back from rock-bottom. That is why this movie is as hated as it is, because taking this element out, this would just be another bad comic book movie that people should be used to from DC at this point, but with the pedigree of the first film in mind, this is a severe downgrade that is honestly a little embarrassing. Overall, it’s hard to find anything worth going back to with this movie (even some of the lesser DC movies had something to go back too) as the film houses a terrible script, awkward acting, a poorly handled storyline, and a tone that nobody would want to see unless they wanted a full redux of the first film (which just seems counterproductive), but at the same time, it’d be a little far-fetched to believe that this ranks among the worst of the worst when it comes to comic book movies. Definitely bad, but not even worthy of considering one of the worst, one of the worst crimes this movie commits is leaving out that awesome guitar riff. Decide for yourself what allowed Wonder Woman to fall from grace.