Review: Wonder Woman 1984
Saturday, December 26, 2020 at 8:11PM By Lynn Lee
Heading into this strange winter holiday season, Wonder Woman 1984 faces a daunting double challenge even for one of the world’s most iconic superheroes. First, as a movie, does it live up to the widely acclaimed first Wonder Woman? Second, will its performance – by whatever metrics apply in COVID times – justify Warner Bros’ decision to release the movie simultaneously in theaters and on its newly controversial streaming platform HBOMax?
The jury’s still out on the second question, but the answer to the first, alas, is no. Wonder Woman 1984 is a mess. Despite that fact, it’s also surprisingly enjoyable, due to the charisma of its cast and residual goodwill from its 2017 predecessor. But as the movie that may shape the future not only of the Wonder Woman franchise but of movies as we know them, it’s a worryingly slender reed to bear such pressure...
As its title promises, the sequel picks up in mid-’80s Washington, D.C., after a brief introductory flashback to our heroine’s childhood in the Amazonian paradise Themyscira that gives us a fun, if unnecessary, preview of the movie’s moral message.
Seven decades after the events of the first Wonder Woman movie, Diana (Gal Gadot, luminous as ever) is working as an anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution in D.C. and moonlighting as an anonymous crimefighter who manages never to be captured on camera. (Why anonymous, and what else she’s been doing since World War I, is never really explained, even though foiling urban crimes seems kind of...small bore for Wonder Woman.)
She still carries a torch for her lost WWI love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), and doesn’t seem close to anyone at this point in her life, though she does befriend a klutzy, insecure new Smithsonian mineralogist, Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), who’s tasked with identifying stolen antiquities that include a seemingly worthless stone of unknown provenance. The stone turns out to have extraordinary properties that make it the target of the movie’s chief villain, television celebrity and snake oil salesman masquerading as oil mogul Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), whose veneer of wealth is eroding faster than you can say “Donald Trump” and who sees the stone as the key to realizing his ambitions.
It is and it isn’t; to say more would give away too much of the plot, such as it is. While the stone may be a Macguffin, the head-scratching narrative developments it precipitates turn out to be the movie’s downfall. Nothing Max Lord does once he [minor spoiler] gets hold of the stone makes any sense, nor do any of the consequences of his actions, which escalate to the impending collapse of human civilization in muddled, improbably accelerated fashion. Very little else about the movie’s major plot turns makes much sense, either, from the behavior of the petty thieves Wonder Woman defeats at the outset to the manner in which her beloved Steve [not a spoiler if you’ve seen any advertising] comes back into her life. (Vulture has a funny commentary on that plot point.) I do give the writers credit for not making the climax the kind of big blowout CGI-fest battle that always bores me in superhero movies. What they offer instead – a simple, borderline simplistic appeal to both the characters’ and audience’s humanity – feels truer to the Wonder Woman spirit, but once again at the expense of narrative logic.
And also, perhaps, at the expense of fans who want to see Diana kick physical as well as moral ass. The action set pieces in WW84 are adequate without being particularly memorable – nothing on par with the epic No Man’s Land scene in the first Wonder Woman – though they do show a new vulnerability in Diana that ups the dramatic ante. The lasso of truth gets a good workout, and the writers find a cute way to incorporate Wonder Woman’s invisible plane into the narrative. But too much of the movie focuses on Lord’s frantic machinations to accumulate more power, with Diana and Steve trailing behind him. Even the ’80s trappings, which should have been a selling point, feel perfunctory and largely fade away as the story goes on.
With all these flaws, why did I still enjoy Wonder Woman 1984? Mostly because of the cast. Gadot’s magnetism makes it easier to accept Diana’s relative passivity and reactiveness in this outing, and her chemistry with Pine remains potent—even if the movie’s attempt to make Steve the cultural fish out of water this time, while mildly funny, only reminds the viewer of how much better the first movie was in this department, too. (Part of it is Gadot really gives off the air of an otherworldly being who could be genuinely mystified by modern human artifices, whereas Pine comes across as savvy and contemporary regardless of where and when he turns up.) There’s a reasonable argument that bringing back Steve dilutes his emotional impact in both WW movies, yet there’s no denying that 1984 would be much less watchable without his cool, low-key charm and willingness to play loving, level-headed backup to Diana.
1984 also gets good mileage—up to a point—out of Wiig’s Barbara, whose desire to be like Diana drives her transformation [technically a spoiler] into the super-strong, sexy Cheetah. Wiig wisely underplays rather than exaggerates both sides of her character, and her interactions with Gadot made me wonder what a queer take on her relationship with Diana could look like. (Come on, Patty Jenkins, you know you’d like to have had a go at that!) Unfortunately, after a promising beginning, she ends up underutilized (and eventually buried under CGI that brings up bad associations with Cats), as the focus shifts to the much less interesting Max Lord.
Pascal, for his part, gamely does his best with a go-big-or-go-home approach to the role, imputing a manic, increasingly desperate quality to the archvillain’s smarminess that suggests his evildoing – like Barbara’s – is rooted in deep-seated insecurity, but it’s not enough to flesh out a character who’s given virtually no narrative context for why he’s doing whatever the hell it is he’s doing. Not until near the end of the movie do we get a blink-and-miss flashback montage that shows a glimpse of Lord’s past and hints at how it shaped his psychology, but by then it’s far too little too late.
All in all, while Wonder Woman 1984 whiffs on narrative and thematic coherence and barely ekes out a passing grade for its new characters, it gets just enough moments right to keep you invested in its heroine and her quest to protect and redeem humanity. Whether it’s enough to get her another movie is anybody’s guess at this point. Sadly, that question likely depends on a host of factors that have nothing to do with this movie’s merits and everything to do with Warner Brothers’ decisionmaking calculus.
Grade: B- (probably should be a C+, but my desire to see the Wonder Woman series continue is showing)
Reader Comments (29)
We're pretty much on the same page. It does some really good things, but it's quite messy and doesn't come together like it should.
For shame. The first film was so promising.
I'll pass on this and watch it if it comes out on netflix.
Initial viewing without reading up on it put it on the "it was fine" camp while still thinking SO MUCH of it was a hot mess. Loved Pine/Wiig and some of the scenes were quite lovely.
Afterwards reading up the racist overtones (yes, it was the 80s but come on) and the problematic Cairo detour and the unexplored bit of non-consent about using this random (not Chris Pine) guy's body for dangerous situations AND sex is... a lot.
And I agree that for some reason this didn't feel like a DIANA movie. Like she's still the lead and Gadot is magnetic and charming. But the Steve-ness of it all undercuts her a bit and Pascal/Wiig get the flashy stuff towards the end.
I don't watch more than 30% of these superhero movies, but I'm kind of at a loss as to all the hate. I mean, okay, it's a mess but none of these are TOKYO STORY. It's a half star below CAPTAIN AMERICA and a half star above THE DARK NIGHT RISES. I guess I just lack the ability to tell the difference between one fast food hamburger and another.
It was a letdown for me. The movie was going fine until the third act... Then it turned into an average predictable popcorn feature, which was a shame given the touches of Diana's grief and Barbara's feminist development. The trucks action scene could have been epic, but it got messy... At least Gal Gadot luminous screen presence never disappoints and I could listen to her accent all day
Lynn -- right with you on most of this. i kept feeling myself rooting for the movie even when it was not delivering. which was... alot.
Ed- agreed. that last act is... yikes.
Dan -- uh. the Captain America movies are the best ones (other than Raimi's Spider-Man movies)!
I liked the film yet there were some flaws as I thought Barbara's development didn't do enough to explain more of why she turned evil and what happened to her. There were some faults about that MacGuffin and how it connected with the history of civilization as those were some minor things about the film that I had issues with. Yet, Pascal, Gadot, and Pine really made me enjoy the film as well as some of the action and drama. It definitely echoed Superman II in some respects.
Wiig wisely underplays rather than exaggerates both sides of her character, and her interactions with Gadot made me wonder what a queer take on her relationship with Diana could look like.
While not overtly queer, the film we got had some reading between the lines.
@thevoid99: I also thought about Superman II (and Superman Returns), wondering if Diana’s interactions with the Chris/Kris character had any consequences. There’s a long time between 1984 and whenever the Justice League starts.
When Gal Gadot swings, swishes, slides and sashays into a fight, and slings the bad guys with her lasso, she remains a delight to watch.
Still waiting for Chris Pine to get an Oscar nomination. He's so talented.
I gave up on most Superhero movies ten years ago.Everything is so samey.
It’s like when she was trying to sing Imagine all over again, but this time they made it into a feature-length movie.
That ending was beyond cringey.
The only saving grave is unsurprisingly Wiig.
It's crap that condones rape. We watched different films, it seems... or have different moral values. Steve and Diana basically rape a "handsome guy" (literally, check out the IMDB listing of the character, he's not given even a name, you can't make a character more an object, than this...) without his consent, for days, never address the moral and ethics of the situation... and what is worse, it wasn't even needed plotwise, Steve could have been resurrected with his body, but they chose going this way.
Also, it rehashes so many bad superhero films...
@Jesus Steven and Diana don't rape anyone. Whatever consciousness created all the chaos that the film is about was responsible for the Steve-in-the-handsome-guy's body situation. Steve and Diana didn't do it. Your take is like a parody of woke culture. Jesus.
Pedro Pascal would make a great young Donald Trump in a biopic. Or DiCaprio. It depends on the budget.
It was a pretty decent movie but not as good as the first one. The cast was good but the story was so-so and the movie didn't do much to develop Diana's character. The CGI was cheesy at times and they completely overdid things with the lasso....they got lazy with the action and used the lasso way too much. I also didn't like that they brought back Steve Trevor....regardless of how it was done, it just cheapens his sacrifice at the end of the first movie.
@ Cecelia
And if he wasn't in retirement, Jack Nicholson would be an interesting contemporary
Trump. (As would John Doman or Bill Atherton.)I've gone back and reread Lyn's review more slowly, and agree with most of it. (Why is she using her powers to fight small time crime, anyway?) The film certainly has weaknesses and doesn't live up to the hype, but still, damn. The negative response to the film raises the question of sexism. I'm sensing that there's some blood in the water around Jenkins at the moment, the first woman to receive a A-list salary boost commensurate with the success of her previous film. I mean okay: it's not as good as the better superhero movies we've seen, but it's better than, probably 50% of them. Why the hysterical reactions that I'm seeing on Facebook: "absolute waste of time garbage!" "Worst film of the year! Complete unwatchable garbage!" "atrocious writing, unbearable acting, dreadful direction, god awful story editing! Do you need more?" (These are cut-n-pasted exact quotations from Facebook threads I'm seeing.) Damn. The theory that the film somehow condones the rape of a man is particularly telling as a backlash against the film's feminist perspective. I mean I get the logic, but come on. That's like saying Jack was stalking Rose in TITANIC. It's just REALLY a stretch. How is it that this is the first big blockbuster where a really attractive woman is at a party and has happen to her what happens in reality in such occasions: Guys coming on to her in cloddish ways everywhere she turns? But let's ignore this real-world reference and go for the "non-consensual takeover of a body by a magic rock" plot device.
Working stiff, William Atherton, yes! Great choice! There are so many good options that the producers will have no problems with the main actor. They can't go wrong. And Trump is the type of character that Jack Nicholson has played his entire life. Too bad he's retiring. He would make a feast with the character. Maybe getting a fourth Oscar. Anthony Hopkins may be an option.
Dan Humphrey: The pile-on troubles me, too. It makes me more inclined to defend the movie despite its flaws.
But agree with Nathaniel that the Captain America movies are among the best in the superhero canon.
On a more positive note, with respect to my question #1, it looks like Jenkins et al. are getting a third WW movie that will have a traditional theatrical release. So yay? But let's hope the takeaway message for them was *not* "more of this, please!" [this = the writing in WW1984]
Why the 80’s? Not like they really used the time period effectively?
Why now WW54 and set in the 50’s- you still would have had nuclear war and then it would have been fairly not too long after WW2 and losing her true love? Could have told the whole story and nothing would have been lost.
Lynn: I really like the CAPTAIN AMERICA movies, too. He's probably my favorite superhero. But I wouldn't put those films up with THE GODFATHER movies. But somehow, people are criticizing WW84 on the kind of rubric people use for things way, way above pop culture entertainment.
@Mikko
Diana and Steve face no moral issue for using the body of an unconscious man. The man literally doesn't have a name in the credits (check out IMDB) beyong "Handsome Man". What it is worse, this is a deliberate decission by the filmmakers, as magic is working and could have created a body for Steve rather than to make his soul possess an inocent random man.
The film is so bad, that when this is stablished what we have is:
1) Diana and Steve act out of character without facing the moral issue
2) by having a moral issue with Steve's situation, it's literally the downfall of the desire: Diana has what she wished but she can't really have it, without breaking her own morals, thus weakening her real self. It's not addressed properly at any point of the film
3) we have a condonation of sexual abuse and rape. It's literally the same situation that if you find someone you fancy, unconscious, and take advantage of the situation
4) the movie is set in a time where sexual interaction with strangers was specially dangerous, the peak of the AIDS pandemic. Let's ignore that fact
5) the final nail in the coffin? the last scene when Diana randomly meets this man again... corny, cheese and showing us a Diana that doesn't have a moral compass anymore.
So, the overall message that the film delivers, unconsciously is... "raping is good if the victim is a man that has passed out and will never know"? What?
Personally I would have liked more of the Diana fighting small crimes with 80s fashions, I'm a little fed up of world ending threats in every superhero movie, especially after 2020.
I think the 'rape' accusation is interesting from a legal point of view. I don't think it's a fair comparison to an unconscious person, as the Steve was effectively the handsome man at this point, in that regard the body and the mind was giving enthusiastic consent at that point. A more interesting comparison might be someone suffering from multiple personality disorder where one personality gives consent. So maybe someone with foreknowledge of the multiple personalities might have a case against them (is there a legal precedence here?) Diana would to the best of her knowledge have understood the handsome man had given consent. Personally at this point I thought we were in a Heaven can Wait scenario where handsome man had conveniently died which maybe would've made the accusation even less sticky.
Of course had the film ground to a halt to discuss the moral and metaphysical implications of taking over someone else's body I'm not sure that would've done the narrative or eventual run time any favours.
@BJT... point being... it wasn't even necessary. They are working with magic. That means, have Steve be resurrected in body and soul, and you have no moral issue, just pure love.
Jenkins and her team made the delliberate decission to include a rotten moral decission in the film, and not address it. They went to the lenghts of not even giving the character a name. She could excuse herself by saying she wanted to bring that issue into conversation, but she really can't, as the film merrily dispatch it without even addressing that a man is being used as a sexual object without consent, in a time where a sexual relationship could kill you.
@Jesus, I understand the argument. Like you, presumably, I've read the new FORBES article ("The Warped Morality of Wonder Woman"). But discussions like this, while interesting for a philosophy classroom, are pretty silly anywhere else. Have you seen the old Colin Higgins movie FOUL PLAY (1978)? How many people's lives did Chevy Chase endanger (maybe even destroy) to try and save the pope from assassination at the San Francisco Opera House? From the look of all those car crashes, there have to have been a few people who wound up in wheelchairs for life just to save him and give the film a "happy" ending. You could come up with moral denunciations of probably 25% of all innocuous Hollywood movies with a magnifying glass like that.
In this instance, it really seems to me like some dudes are trying to get back at the feminists who love Wonder Woman as a symbol and icon (and Hollywood property) by throwing a rape culture allegation around their necks. Fine. Outside of the men's rights movement, the click-bait culture at Forbes.com, and a few philosophy seminars, I don't think many people are gonna buy it as a serious argument about a real problem. I'm happy to reconsider once spells and incantations like the one in the film actually start appearing in the real world.
I’m not sure if I’ll see the movie, but if I do, I’ll bet I’ll have enjoyed reading your review more than watching the film. Interesting and fun to read as always— you have a way of distilling big, complicated thoughts into snappy, digestible bits.
@Mikko...
it's simple, we don't need a scholarship. This is mainstream entertainment, which is an ultimate model for audiences, specially youjnger ones, in this case. To (ab)use a character as a sexual object, in this way, sends a message. What makes it even worse, is the complete hipocresy surrounding this fact... if the character was a woman, Patty Jenkins career would be over. But it is a man, named "handsome man" and people is suddenly OK with that?
for the matter... I've been sexually objectified and abused in the past. Maybe I could be oversensitive with this issue, and that is why i can't get over this fact.