When the DCEU was at its lowest, director Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot gave the universe life with the release of 2017’s Wonder Woman. An origin film that gave fans of the DC brand hopes that a great movie was still possible.
Rather than push forward a cinematic universe, Wonder Woman sets itself apart with a stand-alone story that continues to be the DCEU brand’s standard. The film was entertaining and evoked the thoughts that comic book superheroes and their stories were the modern mythology we read when we were younger.
As the pandemic took over the world in 2020 and most of our anticipated films moved to 2021, Diana Prince and company returned with Wonder Woman 1984, a film that is a throwback to the Golden and Silver Age of comics where villains of the week existed and cheese and high energy were welcomed by its readers and while it doesn’t quite match the overwhelming expectations of its predecessor, the film still provides a level of joy and entertainment unseen in soulless DC entries such as Man of Steel, Suicide Squad, and the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman.
This time around, Patty Jenkins steps away from making a carbon copy of the 2017 film, and for better or worse, Wonder Woman 1984 is a significantly different movie than Wonder Woman. Outside of Diana’s relationship with Steve Trevor, WW84 is visually, tonally, and narratively different and feels designed to allow folks who have not seen the first entry to jump into Diana’s newest adventure with a clean slate, similar to the Wonder Woman TV show from yesteryear.
The film focuses on Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), a greedy 80’s businessman who presents himself as a whiz kid oil tycoon but is a con man with impatient investors. With dreams of fortune, Lord has his eyes set on a magical wishing stone (yep, as simple as that) which ends up in the antiquities department of the Smithsonian, where Diana works. As Diane and Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) start studying the stone and both inadvertently make wishes, the stone ultimately leads to Lord getting his hands on it.
On our podcast, I’ve stated how cinephiles seem to have a “prisoner of the moment” mindset when it comes to any film, let alone comic book films. The 1980s and 1990s are the two most essential decades when it comes to the genre as it showed studios what to do and not to do within the genre (Note to MCU stans: Marvel films were the “what not to do” during that era). Wonder Woman 1984 feels more like a ’90s film during the early stages of the superhero film explosion. That’s not necessarily bad, so the current hate film Twitter is giving this film is borderline comical.
What worked for me is that WW84 doesn’t sprinkle much action throughout the first half of the film as we are not treated to our first action set-piece until an hour into the film. Rather than using the action set pieces as a crutch, the action feels earned similarly to 1978’s Superman, where the film focuses on Clark’s coming of age story rather than seeing him fly for 2 hours. While this may rub folks the wrong way, I found it to be a solid choice that allows us time to invest in both heroes and villains in the film.
Gal Gadot is as charming as ever as Diana Prince. She brings heart to the role and cements Diana/Wonder Woman as an ideal role model for young girls worldwide. While Steve Trevor’s return feels lazy, Chris Pine’s performance is far from it. Pine is not only hilarious but brilliantly captures the “fish out of water” as he views a trash can as art and runs through wardrobe changes that match any LOL moment in film this year.
Kristen Wiig was excellent as Dr. Barbara Minerva. Her quirkiness and comedic timing are on full display as she brings to light a villain with real motive and not one who wants to take down Wonder Woman for the sake of hero vs. villain. Speaking of justification, Pedro Pascal is the way! His mustache-twirling campy villain portrayal as Maxwell Lord worked for me on every level. Pascal is over the top but his motives, though misguided, are understandable as he wants to be a better father to his son and not a loser.
Matthew Jensen’s cinematography is a joy to watch as he makes it a goal to have colors pop, which ultimately adds to the tone of the 1980s. That, along with the production design, is an absolute marvel. There is nothing more iconic and timely to an 80’s film/show than a mall, and the mall in this film echoes the 1980’s in the most delightful way. Hans Zimmer’s new score includes a new version of the main Wonder Woman score that is more triumphant than its predecessor and provides a score that falls in line with one of my favorite of the year.
Despite the pros mentioned, the film does suffer from an overstuffed length. The 2 hour and 30-minute run-time is just too long as there were moments where I caught myself looking at the time. Jenkins and her team could have had one more edit of the film to tighten the length up that could have assisted in its pacing. Along with that, the opening scene of the film, while superb to go back to Themyscira, really offers no correlation to any other aspect of Diana’s character and the message set in the scene. Finally, the CGI, while not overly dreadful, confirms that we should not see CGI fur ever again.
While Wonder Woman 1984 has its flaws, it does not take away from how entertaining it was. I’m looking forward to watching the final chapter in the Wonder Woman trilogy. When comic book films are at the forefront, it’s great to see that the two comic-book movies released in 2020 continue to show that female-led superhero films can be successful.
