Wonder Woman 1984
The DC universe is a funny thing, it is filled with high, highs and low, lows. These quality differences inside their movies keep me coming back to their films with hope and leaving slightly confused about how I feel.
The brightest star on their roster has to be Wonder Woman, the first movie (also directed by Patty Jenkins) was a super enjoyable movie, that gave us a new spin on a fan favorite character, that I personally enjoyed. The issue is, where do they go from here? Wonder Woman 1984 unfortunately does not live up to the original and in some ways takes steps backwards for the DCEU.
Wonder Woman 1984 starts out with a great premise, set a Wonder Woman movie in each decade and make a fun era film that calls back to the fun styles and attitudes of the time. I am here to say, when they focus on that, this movie is a ton of fun, but I don’t think they took that premise far enough. It is great seeing the role reversal with the “Fish out of water” scenes where Steve Trevor is now new to this 80’s world and Diana is an expert. They have some fun bits and call backs to 80’s cinema. There needed to be a bit more of that and a bigger focus on Diana’s relationship with Steve on screen to really sell it. The relationship between Steve and Diana was the heart of the first film, and although they try to do it again here, it falls a bit flat. (not to mention the execution of how they bring back Steve Trevor is odd to put it mildly)
Wonder Woman 1984 also falls into a pretty generic villain (the last name of this guy is Power…) and his character has a power that changes depending on what the plot needs to keep moving. The whole premise is that Max Powers can grant wishes, but each wish comes with its own cost. The movie never quite figures out how these powers work so we end up with a pretty sloppy ending that doesn’t have much of a payoff.
Lastly, Cheetah is done dirty in this film. Kristen Wig was not really the right casting for this character and although at first, I liked the direction, by the end of the movie she becomes a mindless monster that is easily beaten by Wonder Woman and never really completes her arch.
Overall, I think this film had some great scenes, and some fun 80’s references, but lands on the sloppier side of the DCEU. The framework was there but the execution didn’t work. A weak villain, sloppy steaks and some weird narrative choices leaves me wanting more out of a Wonder Woman film.
I can’t recommend starting a HBO Max account for this, and I am going to have to give it a 2 out of 5.
