‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Review: An Underwhelming Sequel to a DC Classic
“Wonder Woman 1984” reunites Gal Gadot as the titular Amazonian with co-star Chris Pine and director Patty Jenkins, and finally hit theaters and streaming on HBO Max on Christmas Day 2020. Unfortunately, it falls short of the magic of its predecessor.
“Wonder Woman 1984” follows Diana Prince now in the year 1984 (sixty-seven years after the events of the first film) living a domesticated life in Washington, D.C. and working out of the Natural History Museum in the Smithsonian. She must come to the aid of mankind once more and combat new threats during the height of the Cold War, after the Dreamstone, a mystical artifact that gives its possessors the ability to make their deepest desires come true at the cost of losing something special to them, is uncovered.
Throughout the course of the film, Diana finds her long-lost love Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) has been brought back to life to accompany her on one last mission to save the world from the clutches of greedy oil tycoon Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) who seeks to capture the stone and use it to promote his own wants and interests across the globe. Helping Lord and his quest for granting wishes is the bookish and socially-awkward Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), who uses Lord’s newfound magical power to give herself a killer instinct and apex predator status in the form of her supervillain alter ego Cheetah she has been looking for her whole life.
Is this newest installment in the DC Extended Universe a blockbuster hit? Does this sequel to the 2017 original improve upon its predecessor and create an ever better film?
To start off with, the standout in this film is Pedro Pascal’s performance as Maxwell Lord. Pascal, in full swing into A-list stardom off the back of “The Mandalorian” on Disney+, proves to be a world-class thespian more than capable of holding his own onscreen. His performance is both charming and charismatic, as well as ruthless and malicious, whenever the story called for it. He is compelling as the cutthroat corporate businessman wanting to succeed at all costs and believable as the erratic, corrupted power-hungry villain. Adding to his top-notch performance was just enough of a sprinkle of zaniness and kookiness familiar to classic comic book villains, that fans of the source material can appreciate.
Lord’s motive is one that makes him a compelling villain which we can understand where he is coming from. Lord is presented as a man who has never caught his break, who has worked hard to rise up the corporate ladder and make it as a wealthy successful businessman to get the most out of the power of the American Dream. However, it has far from worked out for him. As a result, Lord seeks the Dreamstone to give himself what he thinks he deserves most: success. Most of all, Lord just wants to be a man that his young son, Allister, can be proud of. This inner urge to always want more and want to succeed and be the best is in all of us, and on some level we can all see parts of Lord’s quest for greatness within us.
The central message of the film is a tale as old as time, affirming that all good things come at a cost and that we should all be wary of what we wish for. Humans often lack perspective and think that things can be just as simple as getting what you want, without visualizing the potentially hazardous consequences that could come as a result of our greedy wishes. The movie plays with this idea very well throughout, and this is best visualized with the reappearance of Steve Trevor. At first, many fans were unconvinced from the initial trailers of this film of Steve’s resurrection. Most worried that it would come across as a cheap gimmick to bring the star power of Pine - and his fan-favorite character - back to sell tickets.
However, the movie manages to provide an acceptable explanation that ties into the film’s central message. Diana uses the Dreamstone to wish Steve Trevor back into existence, and this comes at the ultimate cost: her demigod powers and abilities, causing her to grow increasingly weaker and more mortal. As such, we see an interesting personal struggle with Diana caught between wanting her only love, lost to time long ago, back in her life and her ability to save the world. This creates several emotionally-impactful moments in the film, especially towards its conclusion as Steve and Diana decide to say goodbye again for a second time, this time forever.
Unfortunately, however, these are the only notable highlights in a film that falls far short of greatness, as the film features many average or even subpar elements outside of the aforementioned moments. From the beginning, the film is incredibly campy, especially in the dialogue, best seen in the opening mall sequence where characters seem like cartoons of camp. At many points, this makes the movie come across as just cheesy or corny. Lighthearted comic book movies, such as 2019’s “Shazam!,” proved to successfully pull this off because this was the initial tone established. However, in the context of taking over from the original film, which was more somber and self-serious, this film seems very tonally inconsistent.
Barbara, as the secondary antagonist of the film, unfortunately fell into a formula that we have seen several times in comic book cinema from Jim Carrey’s Riddler in “Batman Forever” to Jamie Foxx’s Electro in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” as well as with Aldrich Killian in “Iron Man 3” and Syndrome in “The Incredibles.” Barbara is presented to us as a nerdy, shy, awkward academic (denoted by the classic glasses and frizzy hair on an otherwise attractive person, per the cliché) who feels unnoticed and underappreciated and wants nothing more than to be the protagonist of the film out of personal envy. Thus, once they gain their abilities, they become “attractive” and confident and fight the hero out of spite.
This might have worked better for Wiig, who had a decent performance as Barbara, but as the umpteenth time this has been presented to us in a comic book film, it came across as too cliché. Not to mention that the actual Cheetah seems to be in the movie about as much as she was in the most recent trailers, used for just a few minutes in the final fight which seems disrespectful to a villain often presented in the comics as Wonder Woman’s chief archenemy. There also seems to be a massive motive disconnect between Barbara being jealous of Diana and wanting to be recognized, and then her agreeing to help Lord pull of his plan of worldwide chaos and nuclear war.
The action, which was an absolute highlight of the original film due to its impressively stylized choreography, was lacking and subpar in this installment. The first half of the film lacks any substantial action whatsoever, and fills the runtime with other, less exciting, story elements. Even when the action kicks off over halfway through the film, none of it is particularly engaging or notable and was, in fact, quite forgettable. Aside from the final fight, Diana spends the rest of the runtime in some form of weakened state due to the nature of the story chosen to be told, which contributes to the very lackluster and underwhelming action sequences in the film.
Surprisingly, Diana was one of the weakest characters in the film, and similar can be said of Gal Gadot’s performance, in her fourth official outing as the character. This is primarily a problem with the writing and storytelling in the film. This script is arguably one of the weakest scripts in the DCEU, and among other things, puts Diana in the backseat of her own movie.
The film juggles many storylines, and lingers long on developing Lord, on following Barbara, and showcasing the novelty of Steve Trevor being back. The script does not successfully or properly handle all these storylines and chooses, of all the elements to cut back on, to shrink Diana. Diana, as well as Gadot’s performance, is rather flat and uncompelling and lacks a good arc throughout the film with her character basically being in a plateau throughout the runtime. She just feels present throughout the film reacting to things going on around her which propel the plot, instead of being a propelling force within her own movie.
Aside from this ill-advised storytelling and characterization with Diana, the script continues to display its weakness by being filled with plot holes, conveniences, and contrivances. Examples of this include Diana apparently and conveniently being able to make any object invisible using her magic (as well as a jet disappearing from the visual light spectrum also being undetectable to RADAR), Diana apparently and conveniently being able to fly like Superman, and Steve going from World War I prop-plane pilot to being able to pilot a military-grade jet without a hitch. On top of all of this, one could take an entire article to discuss all the continuity problems with the DCEU as Warner Bros. has seemingly given up altogether at attaining any sense of cohesiveness.
The movie also ignores some of its previously-established logic at several key points, such as Barbara not yet at full-Cheetah power levels being able to withstand the blast from Diana’s gauntlets, Cheetah being able to damage Diana’s golden armor despite the audience being told that it was forged to be impenetrable and withstand damage from the entire world, Maxwell Lord being able to grant wishes to people he is not touching by the “particle beams” coming off the camera recording him in a top-secret military satellite system “touching” people when the beam comes out of the satellites through the television feed, and a weird plot line where Steve does not actually come back but instead just inhabits the body of a random man in 1984 despite Diana’s clear wish to bring Steve back. The final conflict is also resolved by relying on millions of people worldwide to all renege on their wishes and turn against their nature at the same time, every single one which suspends all believability and seems like a contrived ending to resolve the conflict.
The film almost ends on a sour note when Lord is reunited with his son after all of the events of the film and wanting his forgiveness and understanding by owning up to his deeds. His son goes on to forgive him and imply he is always proud of him because he is his dad. This seemed rather odd to include in the film as Lord had just finished a scheme that involved global nuclear war, creating global pandemonium and chaos with his wish-granting, and ending possibly millions of lives. But with no sign of him being apprehended by Wonder Woman or anyone for that matter, it makes his storyline seem like a loose end that lacks a proper satisfying resolution.
Despite the film’s unsatisfying official ending, it ultimately leaves off with a pleasant taste in the viewer’s mouth with a very interesting mid-credits scene with a surprise DC cameo. This mid-credits scene posits an intriguing potential direction for the third installment of the future of the Amazonians in Patty Jenkins’ upcoming Themiscyra-based series on HBO Max.
All in all, “Wonder Woman 1984” was a rather underwhelming and lackluster sequel that suffers from a poor script in creating a narrative in which the main character is flat and uncompelling, the action is lacking and uninventive, and is filled with holes and conveniences to serve its own convoluted story. The film will most likely sit in the bottom half of the DCEU for the time being and for the casual viewer is best seen at home on HBO Max for no extra charge.