Film Review: Wonder Woman 1984
Nonsensical and inert, Wonder Woman 1984 is a punishingly overlong dud
Wonder Woman 1984 is one of the most disappointing films of the year. With its weightless action, incoherent plot, and tenuous grasp of common sense, this follow-up to 2017’s superheroine blockbuster is as choppy as they come. There are glimmers of promise with the film’s scenery-chewing villains, but almost everything is undercooked, making its interminable 151-minute runtime even more egregious. Minor spoilers ahead…
Wonder Woman 1984 seemingly has everything in its corner. A bright and colorful sequel to arguably the best-received entry in the inconsistent DC Extended Universe, this new chapter of the Diana Prince saga sets its sights on expanding the invincible Amazon’s cinematic mythos in a new, lighter way. Director Patty Jenkins reunites with Gal Gadot to transport Wonder Woman to a vibrant vision of the 80s, but a disastrous script, increasingly weightless action, and baffling story choices make for one of the most disappointing blockbusters in recent memory.
2017’s Wonder Woman is undoubtedly the crown jewel of the DCEU: A critical and audience darling that found itself the turning point for a flailing shared universe, the film utilized the gravitas of World War I to tell a thrilling superhero story filled with bravura action and a healthy dose of heart, all brought together by its charismatic leads. Wonder Woman 1984 seeks to recapture much of the magic that made the first film special by (unwisely) bringing back the dead Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), but it falls drastically short.
“Wonder Woman 1984 seeks to recapture much of the magic that made the first film special by (unwisely) bringing back the dead Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), but it falls drastically short of its predecessor.”
Taking place roughly 65 years after the events of the first film, Wonder Woman 1984 finds Diana Prince isolating herself in a cover identity, now working as an anthropologist for The Smithsonian. Enter the Dreamstone: a hackneyed, wish-granting MacGuffin that falls into the museum’s hands when Diana - as Wonder Woman - foils an antiquities heist. The film then finds its principal players embroiled in the chaos that the Monkey’s Paw-esque rock sows. Diana inadvertently wishes her dead love - Steve Trevor, who sacrificed himself in a fiery explosion in the first film - back to life; and the demure Barbara Ann Minerva (Kirsten Wiig), Diana’s new co-worker and friend, wishes for Diana’s confidence, unknowingly giving herself superpowers and a rushed descent into villainy. In addition, a megalomaniacal Ponzi-schemer by the name of Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal, hamming it up in the film’s standout performance) has pulled a Jafar to co-opt the stone’s magic for himself, trading wishes for power and influence.
Wonder Woman is one of DC Comics’ most stalwart and longest-running characters. With a deep library spanning almost 80 years with stories by superstar writers - George Perez with his seminal run in the 80s, Greg Rucka, Brian Azzarello, and Gail Simone with their more recent, but no less defining, works - Diana Prince is a superhero steeped in culture, tradition, and femininity. So, what’s up with Wonder Woman 1984? With such a rich mythology, some of which has begun to explore the character’s queerness and pansexuality, it seems regressive and reductive to have a sequel still be centered around Steve Trevor, a dead man Diana spent a few weeks with almost 70 years ago. What happened to the heartache of never being able to return to Themyscira? Never being able to see her home or Amazonian sisters again? Wonder Woman 1984 makes Diana’s yearning for Steve the central trait of her character, and the entire film is worse for it. Not to mention, with Steve Trevor, Barbara Minerva, and Maxwell Lord taking up much of the narrative real estate, Diana feels much like a supporting character in her own film, sapped of agency and power. Dead-eyed and enervated, all of Gal Gadot’s charisma and magnetism on display in the original film has seemingly evaporated.
“…with Steve Trevor, Barbara Minerva, and Maxwell Lord taking up a lot of the narrative real estate, Diana feels much like a supporting character in her own film, sapped of agency and power.”
First and foremost, Wonder Woman 1984 is a superhero action film, but there isn’t much action in it, and the action we do see is poorly realized. Confused, weightless, and awkwardly composed, the chief set pieces suffer from some of the most inept blocking this side of 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody; it’s customary to watch a big scene in this film and not feel a single thing. And for a production budgeted at over $200 million, the movie looks largely lifeless, with shoddy CGI detracting from every effects shot. There’s an interview floating around with Patty Jenkins which has her addressing the chief criticism of the first film, regretting the studio mandate that forced her to muddy up the final showdown with ugly CGI spectacle, but it’s obvious that there was no real lesson learned. The final confrontation between Diana and Barbara - now fully powered as Cheetah - is a dim, drab mess floating in incomprehensible soup, and it’s several magnitudes worse than the messy Ares climax of the 2017 film.
At best, Wonder Woman 1984 is a bad comic book movie, at worst, it’s ignorantly problematic. Most egregious? Its depiction of Egypt and the Middle East. The fictional culture of Themyscira is awash with concepts of honor, dignity, and tradition, but when it comes to the portrayal of a real-life region, the people are uniformly characterized as terrorists, warmongers, and oil hoarders. I’m by no means an expert in Middle East politics, but even I can tell you that when the only brown people with speaking roles in the film wish for nuclear weapons and a “Divine Wall,” you’ve got serious problems. And for a film that builds its foundation upon feminist empowerment, Wonder Woman 1984 traffics in some confused messaging, primarily seen in Barbara’s accelerated heel-turn. At first, Barbara uses her newfound self-possession in all the requisite, rebuild-yourself ways, but when she’s attacked by a would-be rapist (for a second time by the same man, mind you) and she defends herself, it represents a point of no return for the character. It’s easy to understand the framing of the scene, but it’s incredibly difficult to discern its messaging. Are we supposed to equate the just desserts of a heinous, violent sex criminal as a catalyst for breaking bad? Is it a bad thing to punish someone who is clearly a serial rapist? This story wanted to sell an arc for poor Barbara, but it did so in the most muddled, least convincing way. Also, don’t even get me started on Ravi Patel’s tertiary, exposition-spewing nothing of a character. An Indian Rastafarian with dreadlocks named Babajide who conjures the knowledge of his Mayan ancestors, it’s as if the script ran afoul of its own diversity algorithm.
There’s a trove of incredible, nuanced stories to adapt for a Wonder Woman film, but you wouldn’t know that watching this. At a mind-numbing 151 minutes, Wonder Woman 1984 loves throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks: 80s nostalgia, Themysciran olympics, the pairing of Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, and Pedro Pascal chewing scenery like no other. But none of it works. With its confused messaging, lifeless action, and stereotypes as antiquated as the year it’s set in, this is a second installment that aims to expand a hero’s universe, but looks and feels like a franchise on its last legs.
