Wonder Woman 1984

Wonder Woman 1984
Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal
Directed by Patty Jenkins

There was an episode of "Bob's Burgers" where a food critic reviewed Bob's burgers, and gave it a scathing review, calling the food "overdone and dry."  Teddy - a regular at the burger joint and Bob's best friend - then eats a burger that he's eaten time and time again with no complaint, but this time sets it down and says it's rather "overdone and dry."  Bob then erupts at Teddy saying he's just regurgitating what the food critic said, and Teddy replied with "now I have words to put to my tastes."  Generally I try not to allow reviews to skew my thoughts on a film, but going into "Wonder Woman 1984" I couldn't help but hear the negative reviews from both professional critics and friends to warp my thinking going into it, and the result might be a more pessimistic view than going into it blind - but I doubt it.

It's Washington, D.C. in 1984.  Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) is an anthropologist at the Smithsonian, and lives in virtual solitude since all her friends from 1918 are dead, especially her long lost love Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).  She doesn't associate with anyone and goes from work to home, with the exception of rescuing people from bad guys in her alter ego form Wonder Woman.  Then mousy, insecure gemologist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) begins working at the Smithsonian, and the two girls strike up a friendship.  Minerva is tasked with investigating a number of gem artifacts from a botched robbery and finds a mysterious stone called the Dreamstone, which allows the holder one wish.  Diana wishes for Steve to return, and Barbara wishes to be more like Diana.

Both of their wishes are soon granted.  Steve returns in the body of another man, and Barbara becomes popular, self-assured, athletic, and powerful.  Yet there's someone else who wants the Dreamstone - Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), a swarmy struggling charismatic businessman who owns a failing oil company who desires more and more power and wealth.  He gets his hands on the Dreamstone and wishes for it to become him, and the stone fuses itself with him, and in doing so he's able to grant anyone a wish - as well as take from them whatever he wants.  Soon Diana leans the true power of the Dreamstone - it grants a wish, but also takes something from the wisher, and she faces an impossible decision: let go of Steve once again, or save the world from Lord's growing power and influence as the world literally crumbles around her, and deal with Barbara's growing evil power that also threatens to destroy everyone.

There wasn't another film in 2020 as anticipated as "Wonder Woman 1984," mostly due to the fact that practically every other film was pushed back to 2021.  When it was announced that "WW84" would still be released on Christmas Day, people were excited to finally see a big-screen action blockbuster (even if they could see it on the smaller screen thanks to Warner Bros. deal with HBOMax) - not to mention the sequel to DCEU's biggest success story.  Of course, wit it being 2020, we truly can't have nice things, and the result is a sequel that followed the sequel pattern into oblivion.

It seems that a sequel has to be bigger, bolder, and more convoluted than the original, and "WW84" is truly no exception.  It's bigger in its blunders, it's bolder in its lack of cohesiveness, and more convoluted in every way.  While the first film thrived on balancing the action and emotion of finding Diana Prince as a literal fish out of water learning about the wide outside world for the first time - as well as providing some of cinema's most memorable action sequences (the No Man's Land sequence is still a visual masterpiece), this one abandons all hope of blending action and emotion in grandiose style quite fitting of an actual 80s movie.  The action pales in comparison (from the cringe-worthy mall fight to the off-kilter Egyptian road battle that undoubtedly Jenkins planned on being the next "No Man's Land" to the so-so White House fight and the final lackluster battle) and the emotion is barely there, as there's an important lesson to be learned, but is taught with as much subtly as being based over the head with a mallet.

What would you wish for?  This is the premise of "WW84," as the film centers entirely on this one thought-provoking question...well, at first anyway, then it becomes "what would you give up for that wish?"  In any event, the film centers on a stone that can grant whoever touches it a wish, and of course there's a villain who wishes for wealth and power, as is typical for any action movie like this, but this is also 1984, where Reagan-era economics hold sway and it seems that the only thing on peoples' minds is how much better than can make their lives. 

That, and flashy, wildly colorful outfits, which is the only thing that lets you know this takes place in the 80s (apart from the old computer monitors and television sets) - there's not even a rocking 80s soundtrack!  The mall scene itself would've been a lot better if Wonder Woman was kicking butt to the tune of "Sweet Dreams," "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," or "Total Eclipse of the Heart." 

Anyway, as it is with sequels, you have to make everything bigger and better, with more world-ending threats than you can shake a stick at, and this time it's Max Lord's truly nonsensical plan of taking over the world by offering a wish to everyone in the world and watching the world descend into literal chaos, because it's the best time to rule the world when its in literal tatters.  Some films fall under the problem of too much meddling by the production companies, but here the blame unfortunately lies with Patty Jenkins, who not just directed the film, but co-wrote it with Geoff Johns.  They wrote themselves into a pickle and it seemed that they realized that halfway through and came up with the most nonsensical ending imaginable, a literal Hail Mary pass that in reality would've never worked.

The screenplay also makes the film run a little over two and a half hours, but it didn't have to be that way.  There were several scenes where people talked about the same things in slightly different ways that could've cut the film to a lean two-hours, but instead it's muddied with observations that were picked up the first time mentioned, but for some reason needed to be repeated over and over in different ways.  Yes, we get that if you make a wish that there's a consequence - we learned that the first time.  By the sixth time it's mentioned, it's a bit redundant.  This whole concept itself is laughably inert, as it doesn't allow any truly emotional moments to take place.

The reunion of Diana Prince and Steve Trevor should've been a magical (pun slightly intended) way, as Gal Gadot and Chris Pine had solid chemistry in their first outing, but here they simply go through the motions and there's hardly any emotional connection between the two - maybe it's because when Diana wished for Steve to return, he does so inside another man's body (somehow) and its almost like he stole the man's life and seems to simply be borrowing it.  Gadot herself again shines as Diana Prince, but the choices she makes in this film are downright baffling, and her ever-increasing amount of superpowers just keeps growing and growing (until they don't in order to adhere to the story).  Chris Pine seems to merely exist here and there's no real emotional depth to him at all, and his role is resorted to the typical time-travel tropes of not understanding new technology, gawking at recent fashions (in a cringe-worthy montage nonetheless), and yet somehow understanding modern technology enough to fly a plane through a fireworks show (aside: another negative aspect is how laissez-faire everyone seems to be.  There is a bad guy out there who's bent on world domination but Diana and Steve find time to fly through a fireworks show because its so pretty). 

Pedro Pascal does play the role of the quintessential 80s villain to perfection, but even his motives seem suspect.  Max Lord is your stereotypical 80s flashy businessman who can't handle a business of his own, but wants the notoriety, power, and wealth a successful businessman would obtain, so he sets out to get what he wants by granting wishes to political leaders and tycoons and taking from them what he wants (which doesn't seem to be the stone's original purpose, but hey, it's part of the story).  His ultimate plan doesn't make a lick of sense, and goes beyond campy villainy into cartoonish villainy that makes it impossible to take him seriously.

When it was announced that Kristen Wiig would be playing the villain Cheetah, I couldn't help but laugh at the idea.  Wiig is not known for action blockbusters, but rather SNL skits and films like "Bridesmaids."  Yet, surprisingly, Wiig's performance is the best of the bunch.  She enters the film in her classic comedic style - goofy, insecure, clumsy, and still having a heart of gold.  She effortlessly breezes through this aspect of the role, but it was the transformation into the evil Barbara/Cheetah that was the most intriguing.  She shed the glasses and unkempt hair to become a true femme fatale who more than held her own against Wonder Woman, finding the inner strength (or, storywise, Diana's strength) to become someone more than what she was - but even this wish comes at a cost.  What I didn't like was that there seemed to be character development but yet no character development with Barbara, as she said she became Cheetah because she was tired of being looked down upon and mocked, but we never really saw that happen to her.  Still, Wiig more than dominated the role and you can tell she relished in doing something totally out of her safety zone.

As mentioned before, the action scenes weren't as flashy or memorable as the original, and to not get into spoiler territory, there's a reason for that.  But that reason takes away from the action and nerfs the impact, while playing fast and loose with its own rules in accordance with what's supposed to happen next in the story.  It's impossible to not compare this with the much better original - which may or may not be fair - but here it's more soulless and unmemorable.  Then there's the final action scene between Wonder Woman and a fully-fleshed Cheetah, whose effects made her look like one of the extras from 2019's "Cats" accidentally wandered off the set and landed in the "WW84" set and they just went with it.

As it is with most sequels, "Wonder Woman 1984" failed to re-ignite the same sort of magic and wonder that the original provided, giving a more convoluted, bloated storyline and less-than-stellar action sequences and effects.

The Score: B+