Wonder Woman 1984 — Review Thread

But she didn't do that intentionally out of arrogance, it's really not a good parallel.  

That she cheated. It wasn't true. It comes into play in the latter parts when she has to rethink her wish.

Well, it sure didn't take long this time for subjectivity to yet again take another hit.

I was very disappointed by the lack of cool 80s needle drops.  The movie seemed to largely view the 80s as being just like today, but with uglier clothing. 

Fanible 's shocked reaction at people personally enjoying something he personally didn't.

2020 ennui? Another victim of over extended hype? I don't know. I don't hate this movie as much as everyone is screaming about, and for the reason they are screaming about.

It's hard to even have a conversation with people about it because their reaction is "how can you like it???". Honestly makes me not even want to bother anymore.

Way to go Fanible

Sorry everyone. Most of my posts I was playing up for laughs, but I get that the sarcasm doesn't always come across. I don't genuinely think it's as bad as Batman & Robin.

If on a serious note, I do wish I could have enjoyed it more, because it's not like I enjoy being disappointed.

If it makes everyone feel better, I still think Avatar is a great movie.

If I have sex with Gal Gadot, I wanna have memory of it.

Warner Bros. and DC have caught a lot of well deserved flack in recent years for shamelessly attempting to fast track their way to Disney and Marvel's massive success and providing a lot of charmless and unimaginative movies in the process. While they've seen more goodwill come their way, it's no secret that the massive failure of Justice League put them into an introspective tailspin to figure out how to right the ship and reevaluate their business model. And yet despite all of the bad press, the one film that was universally praised as if it were a film direct from the MCU was 2017's Wonder Woman, which was released some months before the flop of Justice League. While I think the film was overly lauded when it's really just a pretty standard comic book film, Wonder Woman was mostly successful in what it set out to achieve and breathed hope into these DC films that subsequent entries like Aquaman and Shazam have somewhat built off of. Amidst a plethora of duds like Suicide Squad and 2020's already forgotten Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman was DC's sure thing franchise that even people like myself who give these DC movies the cold shoulder are interested in watching. This is what makes the stunningly bad followup, Wonder Woman 1984, so shocking at how much has gone wrong and has immediately erased all of the goodwill that back in 2017 seemed boundless. Wonder Woman 1984 is a movie that works on nearly no levels, a punishing bore that takes illogical plot elements to new heights even within the comic book genre. If Wonder Woman was 2017's most pleasant blockbuster surprise, Wonder Woman 1984 is the perfect representation for the year 2020: full of initial promise but ultimately a forgettable and unpleasant experience that we'd all love to be immediately rid of.

Wonder Woman operated in a cool World War I setting that gave us the fantastic trench warfare and town square sequence that felt well researched and lived in. Wonder Woman 1984 has moved things to, obviously, the '80s where you'd think given the revitalized interest in the decade (then again did it ever waver?) thanks to Stranger Things and other shows and relatively recent removal from it that this would be a much easier America to depict. That's not the case at all, and a paltry opening montage of everything '80s sets the stage for what the viewer will have to endure for the next near three hours of running time (note that this comes after an opening sequence of our protagonist as a child in what's the only decent sequence in the movie). Wonder Woman/Diana Prince is in Washington D.C., and apparently along with her anthropologist duties at the Smithsonian is also resident small town savior and mall cop, as she thwarts some would-be artifact thieves (who rob a mall jewelry store with a backroom of black market antiques in the first of many dubious plot elements) and the FBI brings a dubious "wishing stone" from the attempted robbery to Prince's work. One of her coworkers, Barbara Minverva (Kristen Wiig), begins to look into it but really is just used as a prop for corrupt Ponzi schemer Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) to seduce and steal the stone for himself. Thus sets off a chain of events of characters "wishing" things for themselves: Lord turns himself into the stone and can grant wishes for people though really is doing so for his own benefit, Barbara turns herself into Wonder Woman's supervillain equivalent, and Diana wishes back her deceased boyfriend, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), in one of the oddest of body swapping ways you're apt to unfortunately witness in cinema.

One of the things that any story must do is establish the rules, even if the audience can suspend belief to a degree based on the genre in which the film operates. Wonder Woman 1984 attempts to do none of this, and the "wishing" plot line that dominates the film seems to have limits that are never explored and yet is limitless when it's convenient. Why Lord doesn't get people to just wish Wonder Woman to die or a host of other plot contrivances is never bothered to be explained or explored, and adding to the frustration is that despite the characters constant reminder of the derivative monkey's paw negative recourse for all the wishing there aren't any of these repercussions that actually happen. Surely this "god" that's created the stone would have some trick up their sleeve, or even take over Lord's body? Nope. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to convince me that anyone in this film suffers from anything at all despite the blatant lesson in selfish ambition that the movie trumpets. So here we have a movie with no rules, no theme, and no explanation for anything that's occurring. It's the deadly mix of laziness and incompetence that has garnered it the harsh response from audiences that it deserves. While constantly nitpicking a movie isn't going to make anyone endearing to others, Wonder Woman 1984 assaults its viewers with so many illogical scenarios that it just becomes tedious attempting to remedy the filmmakers' decisions in your head and ultimately you just have to surrender to the realization that this is a shallow film in every way that's attempting to coast on the goodwill of its predecessor and hope no one notices.

It's difficult to point to anything in this film that's successful. Gadot and Pine were a winning combination in the first film, a nice blend of fish-out-of-water charm that helped the film achieve the comedic breath of fresh air that the other melodramatic DC films suffered under. Here the comedy is half-hearted '80s observations, delivered in shockingly flat form from the entire cast. Gadot, who is generally the bright spot in the DC acting repertoire, is immensely bland in this film and even borderline unlikeable. She's so constantly serious in the film despite the ludicrous plot machinations happening around her that you wish the script would throw her a bone and give her a reason to smile. Pine's role is a colossal waste from his entrance to his exit, and he's basically just a dopey surrogate that attempts to breath life into this sordid affair but can only do so much with a terrible script. Wiig is good as one of the villains, but we've seen this character plenty of times before and her motivations don't feel entirely true to the character we spend time with in the beginning. Pascal is delightfully over-the-top as the film's main antagonist, but he too is toppled under the nonsensical script and villain-of-the-week posturing he's forced into.

Despite all of these shortcomings, surely a superhero blockbuster of this caliber will at least offer thrills and extravagant escapism, and yet that element is perhaps where Wonder Woman 1984 fails the most. The effects work is garish and ugly, overly exposed and unconvincing to the point of being laughable when Diana is flying through the clouds. It's 2020's equivalent to Christopher Reeve in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and that is not something a film as expensive as this one should aspire to. The action itself is pretty far and few between as well, and when it does rear its head it's shocking how poorly conceived director Patty Jenkins' vision for these scenes is. It feels uninspired, with a reliance on slow-motion swatting of bullets happening far too often and poor shot coverage of the fight choreography. Even the blandest of blockbusters have the benefit of leaning on their money and effects work to prop themselves up for a scene or two, but Wonder Woman 1984 offers none of the cheap thrills one would hope for throughout its overly long running time. Anyone hoping for anything on par with the first film's dazzling trench sequence will be extremely disappointed with the dull car chases and CGI-laden fistfights that occupy the sequel. It's yet another example of the film being an exercise in the routine and lazy. Not that 2017's Wonder Woman redefined the genre in any way, but you couldn't accuse the movie of going through the motions. Its sequel is a culprit of doing just that.

Wonder Woman 1984 is an incredible flop of a movie, eschewing all of the good faith that the first film garnered and cementing the idea that DC will just never reach the heights of the MCU. Nothing in this movie works, and even worse is that it reeks of uninspired, lazy filmmaking in nearly every facet. The film's only saving grace is that I've seen worse, and even then I'm apt to lower my score for the film with time. It's a wasted opportunity at every turn, and a wholly unpleasant viewing experience that insults its audience by not even attempting to justify its ludicrous ideas and absence of themes. Movies are wonderful escapism that we can forgive at times for lapses in logic or even outright plot holes if they serve the purpose of entertaining, but what cannot be forgiven is when filmmakers take that good grace for granted and frustrate the audience in the process. Wonder Woman 1984 is a disaster. Some critics have said that 2020 was a rough year and we should embrace a "fun" film like this and overlook its faults. Nonsense. Wonder Woman 1984 is the perfect bookend representation of 2020: something we'd all wish never happened and can't wait to move on from and forget.

4/10  

Haven't seen Sonic, but I'm extremely certain I'll like it a whole lot better than this piece of shit.

Who wants to see this challenge accepted? Because I am so in.