Click here for video: Wonder Woman 1984 Review
Hello and Welcome to What Did I Miss where today I will be reviewing Wonder Woman 84, which is now available on HBO MAX, from the next month, and is playing in some theatres. Warner Brothers and DC gave us a Christmas miracle this year by actually giving us a new movie to talk about for what seems like the first time in years, because we don’t talk about New Mutants. Gal Gadot returns as Wonder Woman in now her fourth appearance as the character and I really think she has grown into this role and made it her own while also paying proper homage to the original character and even the version Lynda Carter made famous in the 1970’s. The movie takes place in and around Washington D.C. during 1984 and shows how the consumerist renaissance of America affected everything from world politics to how we look. There are two villains in the movie; the main villain Maxwell Lord is a solid personification of capitalism and while many compare him to the current President of the United States I really did not get that impression, so if you do see that I think you want to. Maxwell Lord is played as a sympathetic yet neurotic and egocentric villain that can never have enough, much like the other villain in the movie Barbara Minera who in the comics goes by the alias cheetah but is never referred to as that in the movie, which is something that always irks me in movies when they use a comic character and do not ever reference their name. Chris Pine as Steve Trevor is back too, and while I honestly thought he was one of the best parts of the movie I was left confused by the mechanics of his resurrection, but I do think without his scenes with Diana this movie would have seemed even longer with a shorter run time. Really there are a bunch of things that confused me about this movie, but first let me talk about the things that I liked.
As I touched on, I thought the best part of this movie is Steve and Diana. If you remember in the first Wonder Woman movie it was Diana that was new to the real world and Steve had to introduce her to the 20th century. In this movie, since Steve has been gone since his death, he needs to be integrated back into society. And while I could have done without the formulaic “fashion show” scene, I loved when they go to the National Air and Space Museum and Steve is just in awe of how far advanced the things he loves, planes, have evolved. Even him almost being brought to tears by the sight of a moving subway train was for me one of the most touching scenes in the movie. Also, I thought his send off towards the end was very moving and the last scene he shares with Diana is the most emotional of probably any movie DC Films has released.
It’s too bad that this is foreseeably the last time Chris Pine will get to play the role because he really nailed it. I think Gal Gadot did a great job as well and she has gotten better as Wonder Woman with each appearance. I sometimes think that she is hindered by some of the choices that the writers have made, but for the script she is given I thought she did a great job. I really like the scene of her and Barbara in the first act of them talking about their lives and starting to bond, I somehow was able to understand how this larger-than-life woman could still be an introvert because of not wanting to put herself in a position to fall in love again. I also liked the initial scene in Themyscira, I like visiting the Amazons and that is such a big part of the lore that is Wonder Woman. I thought that it set up the theme of the movie well, which is the battle of Truth vs Desire, and I guess it set up that flip she did off a truck later. It’s too bad that this movie seems so long because I think because of that people look back at this first scene and see it as unneeded or fluff but I think the theme of the movie would have been lost without it. Since I just touched on the length of the movie, I think that will be a nice segue into what I did not like.
Boy, this is tough because I really wanted to like this movie. I liked the first one a lot, and the same director Patty Jenkins was back for this movie, and usually when a creative team gets to come back the world starts to feel more comfortable and lived in. But from that first scene in 1984 in the mall all the way until the end, this world really makes no sense. First off all, if Wonder Woman doesn’t want to be seen she picked the worst outfit possible. I get that because of Batman vs Superman they have to say that Diana was working in the shadows, and that makes sense if you look like a Bat, but not if you are running around as a 6-foot half naked woman in 1980’s America. It would have made more sense to me if they showed Wonder Woman breaking up some drug deal in a warehouse or something, somewhere that she would not be noticed, but having her bust up a mall in broad daylight was a really bad choice. The whole scene was to set up the Monkeys Paw “Dreamstone” McGuffin that drives the narrative, but they put it in a mall?? Really this scene is the first indicator to me that this script was written with demands, meaning that instead of writing a story first and incorporating aspects of the character or things the studio wants into it, the writers were given things they had to include and create a story around that. I am guessing the popularity of 80s nostalgia, mostly driven by the Netflix show Stranger Things, which spent a good part of a season at a mall, helped make this possible. The Dreamstone itself I thought wasn’t a horrible idea, especially given that usually in the comics Maxwell Lord does have some kind of mind control powers, but having a satellite that can touch everyone? Again, it just seemed forced and that is a word I am going to be using a lot. I think that Pedro Pascal did an alright job as the character, although I did not buy any chemistry between him and Barbara and that scene with them at the Smithsonian was pretty cringe worthy.
I also didn’t buy his connection to his son, and that may have been partly because of the child actor because wow, I think I even saw him pulling away from a hug in one scene. And really the third act of the movie basically turns the story into that of “Liar, Liar” starring Jim Carry, but that movie was supposed to be funny. But honestly the worst character in the movie for me is Kristen Wig’s Barbara Minerva and it pains me to say it because I think this is the first time I have not liked a character that Kristen Wig has played. She just doesn’t need to be in the movie, except to set up a fight scene at the end that is so ugly and so ridiculous that it literally looks like Sylvester and Tweedy bird going at it in the dark. I think if they would have stopped her transformation at the second act and driven home a better connection between her and Maxwell Lord there may be a good foil villain in there, but instead they decide to give both characters huge power upgrades in the third act that just detach them from any kind of believability.
I don’t understand why she turned into a Cheetah; she didn’t ask to I mean she could have frickin turned into a Tyrannosaurs Rex which would have been may cooler and made just as much sense. There are also a lot of similarities between her take on the character and Michelle Pfeiffer’s take on Catwoman, so right there you are changing a character’s backstory and making her less interesting by reusing the tropes of the most famous, feline character in the DC universe. Kind of hard not to make those comparisons. There is also some very bad CGI, and you can leave the last fight scene out and still say that. I swear in the scene on the highway you can tell that she is running on a treadmill or something and the scene is just dropped in on top of her. Not Wonder Woman’s fault, but it happened.
Also, can she fly now? All of a sudden I blink and that is happening. Let me know in the comments, when did she gain the power of flight and was she actually flying? And the movie is so long that they really could have cut some of this stuff out and still had a movie. I read somewhere though that Patty Jenkins is really against filming things and not using them, so if that is true I think that it did not do the movie any favors. Honestly, the first act is OK sans the mall fight and the second act I liked, but the third act just goes off the rails for me and totally makes me not care about what is going on. I am not sure if they spent time on the wrong things or what, but I was so ready for this movie to be over. The only thing that saves that last act is when Steve and Diana have to say goodbye, but since that basically kicks it off by the end of the movie I had lost whatever reverence I had for the film by that point.
I think that having Maxwell Lord as the big bad really put the movie in a bind given that the writers probably knew they had to have a big battle scene and if you make Lord as powerful as Diana it would make even less sense, so they need a physically presence. And if you give him a suit of armor like Diana was wearing coincidently, he becomes a Lex Luthor clone. But still having Cheetah and Lord in this movie just really didn’t work and I think they should have gone one way or the other and it would have made the movie shorter and not feel so forced.
So, for my reviews I thought I would create a system in which I say, “Miss This or “Don’t Miss This” and I am sorry to say that I would have to give Wonder Woman 84 a “Miss This” rating. It is just too much, like when you get a salad and it has nuts and raisons and some type of seed and you are like, “I really just wanted bacon bits and lettuce”? It’s too bad too because I think that Gal Gadot and Chris Pine give great performances, Kristen Wig and Pedro Pascal do OK given the material although I do think Pascal could have turned it down at times. The story is just all over the place and if you can make it though this movie and not have the thought, “What just happened”, pass through your mind at least once than you are a better person than I. I really think DC Films needs to not reboot but having a new jumping off point and just create stories from then on out, maybe in a universe that has some already established villains in it. Flashpoint is a storyline that would allow them to basically do whatever they want, as in it the Flash goes back in time to save his parents and basically everything else changes as well, so it would be smart for DC to use that story and keep the actors like Gal Gadot and just clean these narratives up. And bring back Chris Pine because if anything this movie proves Steve Trevor is an important facet of the success of Wonder Woman. But you let me know, What Did I Miss? How did you like the movie, and do you agree with my review? WandaVision will be coming to Marvel + in early 2021 and I will be releasing a video soon on what to expect and also reviewing the videos weekly, so hit that like button, the subscribe and the bell so you get notified when my new videos come out and you are not left asking What Did I Miss?