Film Delightfully Chaotic and a rush from start to finish.
Wonder Woman 1984 genuinely got and kept my attention. It wasn't just about solving a problem, it was a consistent escalation from the minute Barbara wished to be like Diana to Maxwell Lord solving the wishes of the world. Oh, man, all the characters start out one way, and the movie just bides its time sticking it's foot a little deeper into the pandemonium, and a little deeper, Barbara a little less stable, Maxwell a little more ambitious...That mayhem. It started and it just didn't stop. It was delicious. Pass the Popcorn. Maxwell was interesting to me he's not an empty husk of evil but at the same time, even with his backstory, he's too...slick to be truly tragic. But what makes Maxwell Lorde's tragedy works is that it's not just a sob story to make you feel bad for him, it was a really horrifying look about you get to see it in vicious detail, the father, the bullies, and the movie doesn't use his pain to justify his actions but instead Wonder Woman uses his pain to talk him down from his actions and I think it actually works. The movie ends simultaneously fairly easy on him, but still has him get on his knees and admit to the one person he actually cares about that he is a horrible, disgusting jerk who screwed up royally, which is immensely satisfying. Some have accused wonder woman of being preachy, but I'm forgiving that because we actually see her struggling with that on two fronts. One, the opening shows her cheating at a competition and getting called out for it by her mother and her aunt, which gives her credibility when she repeats that same lesson later. And then she has to give up Steve again... So, in conclusion, is the moral of the movie "Don't be selfish?". No. The movie shows us that Wonder Woman's wish for Steve needs to be reversed to save the day. Could anyone call Wonder Woman's grief selfishness? Barbara's wish was born of immense longing and admiration for Diana, and the poor girl felt really the opposite of that from the way she was treated.Even after the wish she was far from Diana's enemy at first. Rather, I think the real moral of the movie is "everything has a price". The price for Wonder Woman reviving Steve is that an innocent's body is taken from him. The price for saving the world is giving Steve up again.The guy who wishes for a woman to drop dead in the heat of the moment has his wish granted. Young Diana is told in the beginning that hero status is something you have to work for. The dreamstone works by tricking someone into wishing for something and taking something else away as payment, but duping them into thinking they could have something without payment. This is something that you need to read between the lines to find. It's OK to want things But you need to think carefully about what to do and give up to get those things. You need to think carefully about what you really want, and what you really need.
Film Standard superhero fare with a message forced in at gunpoint and beaten into the viewer.
Wonder Woman 1984 by itself, is a competently made superhero flick. Wonder Woman/Diana goes about stopping crime and saving folks along the way, when the villain of the story, Max Lord decides to use a stone to prop up his failing company, and goes on a power trip. The action set pieces are well choreographed and shot, the plot is competent, the visuals look good, and the actors and actresses of the movie put out performances that keep you engaged.
While there are a few holes in the plot that made me question things (How does this wishing process work? How come no one noticed a woman in skimpy armor curb stomp crooks with a glowing lasso?), these were relatively minor nitpicks that I could come up with an explanation that I thought would work, and I would be relatively satisfied with the movie nonetheless.
If only the moral they put in for the flick wasn't presented in such a fucking obnoxious manner.
Keep in mind that the moral itself isn't bad on its own (greed can be bad for your wellbeing), but the execution is so incredibly ham-fisted and blatant that you may as well be listening to everyone that made the flick yell into your ears saying GREED BAD, over and over again while doing something you actually like. It's one thing to pick up some symbolism representing the Aesop the film wants to teach you, and see how it applies via scenes and character interactions. It's another thing to see characters deliver stilted, unnatural sounding dialogue about how they are being too greedy, are lying, and are cheating in life, and that it is bad. The audience already gets the message, and got it from kindergarten; trying to force it down peoples throats is the film equivalent to waterboarding, in that it does nothing but distracts them from what's actually going on in the movie, wastes their time, pisses them off and makes them wish that part wasn't there at all.
If you want to watch the movie, go ahead. My advice? If a character starts taking in a ham-fisted way about the moral, fast forward until it is gone. Or close your eyes and block your ears if you're in theaters.
Film Greed is Bad, Actually. You Should be Ashamed of Yourself!
There is something kind of twee about Patty Jenkin's Wonder Woman movies, that reminds me of the cheesy Sam Raimi Spider-Man films of the early 2000s. That's long enough ago to be considered old fashioned, especially when compared to the gritty reboots of other DC properties, and the smug "Whedonesque" cynicism of the MCU. Wonder Woman 1984 finds a third way by going for unabashed sentimentality.
By day, Diane is an anthropologist in 80s Washington DC, and also by day she is a crime fighting superhero. This risks a plot hole for Batman Vs Superman, which says the public was not aware of Wonder Woman prior to the modern day. A supermodel in a garish costume beating people up with a glowing magic whip might be a thing that sticks out in people's minds, so Diane gets around this by occasionally smashing security cameras with her tiara and telling the people she rescues to keep quiet. It's a big stupid handwave, of the magnitude you'd see in the likes of Spider-Man 2.
A lot of WW 84's story works on handwaves. A magic wishing rock is introduced to the universe and is stolen by sleazy businessman and blatant Donald Trump-expy, Max Lord. How precisely the wishes work, along with Lord's ability to take what he wants in exchange for granting them, is never spelled out. We see a world descending into chaos and war following a spree of careless wishes, meaning no one apparently wished for World Peace at any point (thus contradicting all those people who wish to nuke the people they don't like). Another handwave comes in the reappearance of Steve Trevor, a man who was very dead by 1918 in the last movie. Diane accidentally wishes him back to life, causing him to takeover the life and body of another man. She never considers the ethical concerns of replacing another person out of existence, and the movie hopes you don't either.
Whilst the plot has more holes in it than a moth family's winter wardrobe, the movie gets away with sloppiness through a soft and light hearted tone that whispers "don't worry about it". Sure the World is on the brink of nuclear war, but there's plenty of time for glowing sunsets and fireworks and Diane making cow eyes at people. Sometimes it is cloying, but I appreciate a story that harkens back to the idea of superheroes being morally upstanding people who try to appeal to the best in others. I'm so used to seeing arrogant jerk heroes it makes a nice change.
In terms of action and special effects, WW 84 is a mixed bag. The movie opens on a race in Themyscira island, portrayed with the graphical fidelity and excitement of a Play Station 3 game in 2023. There are good set piece scenes in the middle, and a final five minute appearance from the Supervillain Cheetah that is shot in the dark to obscure how bad it looks. I want to be kind to WW 84, but taken altogether I can say it is an okay movie, benefitting from the lack of anything better out there that is anything like it.