Wonder Woman 1984 | Film Review

Before we start, I gotta tell you something.  I’m a huge DC comics fan; always have been, always will be. As a kid, it was pretty much all Superman, all day. I truly loved the Man of Steel. Christopher Reeve’s portrayal – in the first two movies, anyways – still remains the gold standard for me when it comes to superheroes on film. As I moved into my teens and beyond, my interests expanded and characters such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, and many others eventually joined Kal-El on my list of regular reads. I did occasionally peruse Marvel offerings (usually Spider-Man), but my heart was always most at home in the house that Supes and Bats built.

I always wished we had gotten a Wonder Woman flick back when Christopher Reeve and Michael Keaton were flexing on every screen in town. I may not have read her comics in the very early days, but I was certainly a fan thanks to the live action Lynda Carter TV series and her appearances in the Saturday morning cartoon Super Friends. The cartoon got me first because, hey, any friend of Superman is a friend of mine. And she was actually pretty cool with her magic lasso and invisible jet. Then, with the onset of puberty, Lynda Carter suddenly nudged out her hand-drawn counterpart for – ahem – obvious reasons. Please don’t judge. Hormones are powerful things. It’s sad that a movie never came to be back then, but thankfully there were still the books, and they were pretty great.

This next bit may irritate some, but I feel it needs to be said. I am not a fan of the Zack Snyder DC movies Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. While they are far from terrible movies, some of the choices that Snyder made in regards to story, tone, and character (especially Superman) just rubbed me the wrong way. That said, he did do some pretty great things in those movies too. For one, he nailed Batman perfectly. As disappointed as I am with what he did in those two movies, I would wholeheartedly support him helming a solo Batman movie. And two, he cast Gal Gadot as my favourite Amazonian in a glorious extended cameo at the end of Batman v Superman. Oh boy. She may not have saved the movie for me on whole, but she sure as hell made it a lot more enjoyable. She…kicked…ass!

Fast forward to 2017. This is getting a little long, so I’ll keep it short and sweet: Gadot returns as Diana Prince in her own movie, Patty Jenkins is in the director’s chair, Chris Pine is adorable, the action rocks, the script is tight, the feels are strong, and I’m sitting in the theatre with a giddy grin stretched across my face that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame. The disappointment of what came before has been swept away in a tsunami of superhero cinematic joy that I hadn’t experienced in years. This wasn’t just a great DC movie, it was a great movie, period. The scene where she climbs out of the trench and steps into No Mans Land gave me feels I hadn’t felt since Chris Reeve first took flight in Superman. After nearly 4 decades of many great comic book flicks, that was one hell of an achievement. Wonder Woman hadn’t just delivered an extraordinary piece of entertainment, it had – in my eyes – saved the DC Universe.

Now, let’s fast forward once more, this time to 2020. Again, short and (maybe not so) sweet: a global pandemic has ground normal life to a halt, theatres are shuttered, the movie schedule is a shambles, and after numerous delays, Warner Bros. has decided to release Wonder Woman 1984 in theatres and on HBO MAX, and through VOD (in certain areas) simultaneously on Christmas Day. As much as I would prefer seeing this in a theatre, I’m just happy at this point to see it at all. And if it’s anywhere near as good as the first, it could be just what we need to help lift our spirits as we finally put this miserable year behind us and head into a hopefully much brighter 2021.

Well, that was the hope.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a movie I really, really wanted to love. The last one was damn near perfect, and with pretty much all the same talent returning for this, I was confident I was going to be doing the silly grin all over again, the only difference being that I would be doing it from my living room instead of in a packed cinema. Alas, that was not to be. Despite having a lot to like, Wonder Woman 84 ended up a pretty big disappointment.

Let’s start with the good. I have to say, the movie did start off with a bang, and for the first twenty minutes or so, I was pretty confident 2017 was about to repeat itself. The opening scene with a young Diana (Lilly Aspell) competing in a race against her fellow Amazonians and ultimately learning a valuable lesson was a joy to behold. It was actually my favourite scene in the whole movie. I really wish the energy, excitement, and joy of those first few minutes had carried on through the rest of the movie, but more on that later. For now, let’s keep the fun train chugging along.

After young Diana is left to ponder her actions, we jump ahead to adult Diana (Gal Gadot) as she foils a robbery in one of the most sacred structures ever constructed on this planet: the 1980s era shopping mall. Oh boy, the tingles were really firing up now. As a kid of the 80s, I braced myself for a full-on nostalgia blow to the feels, and the movie didn’t disappoint; big hair and fanny packs as far as the eye could see. Those were certainly the days, and seeing Wonder Woman flash through the landscape of my childhood kept the fun train racing along. Actually, this scene was very reminiscent of the Chris Reeve early Superman films – bright, a bit goofy, and joyous. I loved it.

From there, we start to move into the meat of this new chapter in the life of Diana Prince, and this is where the fun train started to wobble a bit, but not too badly. At her day job, Diana meets the mousy, kind-hearted Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a woman who certainly deserves to be noticed but just can’t seem to get anyone to do so. As part of her work, Barbara comes into possession of a mysterious artifact that soon captures the attention of our main antagonist, Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), an oil magnate wannabe on the brink of financial disaster. The artifact is Lord’s last chance at attaining the greatness he has always sought, and it isn’t long before said artifact draws all of our main players – and the entire planet – into a disastrous, modern retelling of the classic W.W. Jacob’s short story “The Monkey’s Paw”. Be careful what you wish for, folks, because you may just get it. That’s pretty much the moral of this tale. Oh, and the artifact also plays a crucial role in the return of one of the most beloved characters from the first film, the brave and noble WW1 pilot – and love of Diana’s life – Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), who we last saw getting blown to bits at the end of the last movie. How does all of this unfold? Well, I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to check it out for yourself.

All of these actors did a great job. Gal Gadot continues to make the title role her own, and I can’t really see anyone else as the goddess heroine from Themyscira at this point. Whether she’s engaging in some girl talk over coffee, has her nose buried in a dusty old tome, or is lassoing a lightning bolt high above the Earth, Gadot never ceases to seize your attention. As much as Chris Reeve will always be my Superman, Gal Gadot will always be my Wonder Woman. Kristen Wiig takes a character we have seen many times before in this kind of movie – she is pretty much a near exact copy of Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns – and gives it just enough of her own personality and presence to make her transformation from mousy to catty enjoyable if not wholly original. Good ol’ Steve is still good ol’ Steve and it was fun to see the tables turn on Pine from the first movie and have him in the fish-out-of-water role this time out. And, of course, it was great to see he and Gadot re-united. And though he did threaten to gnaw on the scenery a bit too much at times, Pedro Pascal did offer up a villain that was more fleshed out than usual and was equally easy to hate, like, and pity over the course of his world-ending shenanigans.

Wow, this is sounding pretty good, right? Well, hold on just a minute. Like all things in life, there is often a ‘but’ lurking just around the corner, just waiting to sprinkle a little rain on our parade. And folks, the forecast here ain’t too sunny.

Be thankful that these performers are as good as they are at their jobs because they pretty much saved this movie. Despite my issues with WW84, I still think it is ultimately a decent watch, but the sad thing is it could have – and should have – been so much better. And what are those issues exactly? Well, let’s take a gander.

First off, this movie is way too long. It clocks in at almost two and a half hours long and should have been less than two. Much less maybe. As fun as many of the scenes are, they just got dragged out far too long, especially in regards to Pedro Pascal’s character. When he finally gets what he wants, we spend the rest of the movie just getting hammered over and over with scene after scene of him demonstrating his new ability. It was overkill. We didn’t need all that. It gets so manic towards the end that I couldn’t help but be reminded of that popular Oprah meme that we often see floating around the web. You know the one. It’s where Oprah is waving her arms around and yelling, “And you get a car, and you get a car…” and so on. It was full on bonkers. A lot of cutting and a bit of restraint would have a gone a long way to making this movie tighter and better.

As I said before, Kristen Wiig as Barbara/Cheetah was good, but nothing we haven’t seen many times before. The downtrodden sad sack who gets corrupted by newfound abilities is a staple of this genre. While her arc wasn’t really damaging, it didn’t bring anything new to the table either, and her final transformation wasn’t all that exciting. And I’m going to refrain from any Cats references here. They’ve already been done to death and the Cheetah, ultimately, is what she is. A bit of a letdown.

The action scenes were serviceable, but – aside from the opening with young Diana – not one came anywhere near the spectacle and emotion of what we saw in the original. They were just….so-so. And a lot of those scenes spent way too much time just making Diana look cool in brief shots (the desert truck chase) at the expense of sucking the life out of the action. Surprisingly, there were large stretches of this movie where we barely had any action at all, especially in the first two thirds. It got to the point where I felt I was watching a new National Treasure movie instead of a Wonder Woman movie at times. I want a lot of Wonder Woman in my Wonder Woman movies, and I didn’t get near enough here.

And while the return of Chris Pine as Steve Trevor was a definite high point, there was an element of his resurrection that really, really bothered me. I don’t want to spoil what happens, so I’ll just say that Steve gets to experience life in a new pair of shoes here, and I really didn’t like that. Considering how much fantasy plays into this story, and how things pop into and out of existence throughout the runtime, I’m really baffled as to why they chose to make this an aspect of his return. They really should have kept things simple. Doing what she did, writer/director Patty Jenkins made what had been a beautiful love story – and a long-awaited reunion – really, really icky. I’m cringing just thinking about it. Really? You had to go there? It was an unnecessary distraction that kept worming its way into my brain right up until the credits rolled. I mean, was anyone else who has seen this bothered by the implications of what happened to Steve, or is it just me?

Patty Jenkins is a wonderful director, but I really feel she lost her grip on a script that must have been a bit of a mess from the get go. Especially towards the end, things just go absolutely mad. Maybe with her power and position in Hollywood she just over-indulged and was unable to rein it all in by the end. That’s too bad. She made a truly great Wonder Woman before, but this one doesn’t come anywhere near the gloriousness of its predecessor.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a movie with great moments and characters, but one that is ultimately let down by an unwieldly screenplay that gave into excess when simplicity would have been the much wiser choice. There is a good time to be had here, but the story, characters, and audience have earned so much more. Sadly, it’s a far cry from the wonder we all deserve.

Follow our further discussion on Wonder Woman 1984 via this episode of The Hollywood Outsider podcast: