Wonder Woman 1984 Review

Nostalgia is a powerful thing, particularly in the realm of entertainment and especially in Hollywood; why else would we see so many reboots/sequels/revamps/remakes? Nostalgia also plays a big part in "Wonder Woman 1984," in at least two ways: one, it's a sequel to a film based on the long-running comic book character, but more importantly, it's based in the eighties (hence the title). This allows the screenwriters to again tell a "fish out of water" story, as her love interest Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), is "wished" for, and shows up after dying in the first film. (See, there is this magic relic that grants wishes...) "Oooh," "ahhhh," he says, as he gazes at doohickeys like exercise bikes and break dancers, but they used this joke in the last movie, swapping only the decade.

This narrative cliché is attractive here because it saves the movie makers the trouble of having to create their own world to have a character be out of place in. Why bother producing "Wonder Woman 2084," where you'd need to come up with all sorts of new fancy gadgets and advances in tech, when you can just dig out some roller skates and shoulder pads from the attic and call it a day?

It's not the only copout here. There's a scene where the titular heroine (Gal Gadot) and her boyfriend are flying a plane (stolen from the Smithsonian, lucky they keep all their aircrafts topped off with fuel), and she practices her invisibility power. She's only successfully performed the trick once, on a mug (which she promptly lost. It's a good gag.), before making the entire ship invisible. That's nice for the special effects people- just show some shots of a clear sky, toss in some sound effects and bam, an invisible jet.

No, that's not the biggest problem here: again, it's the picture's half-hearted attempt at making Wonder Woman herself a symbol of women's rights" It doesn't work, again. If she is so powerful, like literally a superhero, why does she need to be saved (at least twice) by a man? Can she not make it without a man in her life? That's the story they're selling, and it's just so frustrating.

Why does Trevor-boy need to come to the rescue? When she wished for him back, she inadvertently traded her most prized possession- her powers. Only they fade over time, so the weaker she grows the more "world saving" he does. She finally revokes her wish (i.e. sending him back to his grave) and bam, she's Wonder Woman again. Can a woman not have a family and a career? What the hell kind of message is that??!!

It's equally annoying that the main villain, Barbara, played by Kristen Wiig, is blinded only by her own vanity. Trading her innocence and kindness to become "just like" the whip-lassoing protagonist, she only wants to be "liked" by her coworkers; why are both female stars here bound by stereotypes?

Anyway, there is another baddie, an oil-hungry tycoon called Max Lord, played by Pedro Pascal, who's appetite has room for wishes as well. Only instead of just using that antique stone to make a wish, he becomes the antique stone, granting other people's wishes for whatever he wants in return. Towards the end of runtime, he's broadcasted on every screen in the world, granting wishes like a corrupt televangelist. His transmission is only in English, yet everyone in the world understands him. That's a logical error, one of several, but hey, this is mass-audience entertainment, why bother scrutinizing it?

Because it's infuriating, that's why! Take Wonder Woman's attire; she wears bullet-reflecting wristbands, yet exposes much of her body in a low-cut top and a mini-skirt? Why not just cover her entire body with the stuff? Only she does do that, in a curt climatic confrontation between her and Cheetah (that's Barbara's alter-ego, or so the internet tells me. I don't recall it ever being spoken here). Draped in gold, complete with wings (though she doesn't need them to actually fly) this final battle finds her appropriately "bullet proof." Another problem: this fight is shot at night, no doubt to hide just how clumsy the CGI fur is on Kristen Wiig. Wasn't "Cats" 2019's problem?

I dunno. "Wonder Woman 1984" is serviceable entertainment. Fans will no doubt be streaming it again and again (or, gasp, seeing it in theaters once or twice). But with so many places in the world on lockdown, the superhero movie genre has some new faces, notably competitor Netflix's "Project Power" and "The Old Guard." Not that either of those films are necessarily any better than this latest DC release, but they offer something it can't: the absence of burden to a franchise. They can be a little darker. A little grittier. A little bit different. A little smaller scale. Here, well, we have mega-budget blockbuster playing on someone else's turf.

I'm giving this two stars because that's what I gave the first one. "Is it just as good?" "Is it disappointing?" Those are irrelevant questions when the studio is already planning on making not only a sequel but a spinoff.