Wonder Woman: 1984

This post contains spoilers for the Wonder Woman: 1984 movie. Reading more is up to you, dear ones.

We watched Wonder Woman: 1984 on Christmas Day. I had been anticipating the movie for some time, since it was originally scheduled for release back in June.

Reviews mostly have not been kind. The Facebook crowd have been merciless in calling the movie boring, stupid, etc. Some liked it, but the more vocal negatives (negatives are always louder, are they not?) are the ones dominating the conversation.

I was not enthralled with the movie. I did not dislike it, but unlike the initial Wonder Woman, this second movie is not one I would pause and watch again should I happen to catch it on. I do plan to watch it once more before it leaves HBO/MAX, but if I don't manage that, I don't think it will bother me.

I give it a solid 3 stars. Had the writing been better, it would have been a better movie. It was a "message movie," and those can be well done. This one was not.

The story finds us in 1984, complete with frizzy hair, crazy clothes, and music of that era. Diana Prince is working for the Smithsonian in antiquities. She is joined by a new co-worker, Barbara Minerva, who is portrayed rather unconvincingly as a bag lady with a degree and a job. She is painfully shy and unable to hold her own in a conversation. She is immediately envious of Diana, who has it together, dresses well, holds intelligent conversations, etc. Of course, Diana's had a lot of practice, being immortal and all and having lived amongst humanity since World War II.

Barbara is asked by the government to review a cache of stolen artifacts. One of these is the DreamStone, which grants wishes if you hold it. Diana picks it up and makes her wish that she could see Steve again. Barbara picks it up and wishes she could be just like Diana.

The stone is stolen by the bad guy, Maxwell Lord. He is a grifter who cons people out of money. He has a young son he sees on weekends. He does not treat the boy well, which apparently is meant to indicate how bad a person Lord is.

Here we have the main problem with the writing of this movie. Lord as a bad guy simply does not work. He is not someone you can root against with absolute certainty. He's a guy who wasn't a fortunate son. He's tried to make something of himself and gone about it the wrong way, is all. He's not evil, he's just caught up in the grips of capitalism and the "me, me" and "I want I want" maxims that we have all been raised with. I could not root against him with any amount of rancor. He isn't Ares trying to keep evil in the forefront. He's a guy who wants a condo and a fast car.

Lord wishes to be the DreamStone. Anyone who touches him is then granted their wish. He goes about giving wishes for money.

Diana, meanwhile, is accosted by someone who says something to her about not having enough time. Those were Steve's last words. She stops, and says, "Don't ever say that to me again." The man yanks off his wristwatch and repeats Steve's last words to Diana. "Oh Steve, it's you, it's you." 

He doesn't come back from the dead. He comes back but he is in some other guy's body. Who knows what happened to the other guy. This has a huge ick factor if you stop and think about it. I mean, Diana sleeps with this guy who is Steve but isn't Steve. It is a major yuck factor in the movie, on my part, anyway.

Barbara, meanwhile, discovers that there is more to Diana than just a sense of presence. There is power and speed. She becomes a superhero-bad guy but not really a bad guy, just someone else who wants more of what she didn't have before.

All of this takes a long time to set up, and the first hour of the movie moves slowly. Diana is weakening and not as powerful as she should be. At first I thought that this was because her powers were transferring to Barbara, but eventually it is explained that she is losing her powers in order to keep Steve there in some other dude's body.

There's some detective work and finding out about the stone; it seems to be involved in the ruination of every single civilization because people won't renounce their wishes. Too much of a good thing means the end of all things, I guess. 

Lord takes off for the Middle East, so Diana and Steve steal a plane and go after him. Diana can turn the plane invisible thanks to the powers of Zeus. There's some fighting and Diana takes a few bullets and bleeds because her powers are being drained.

Diana eventually renounces her wish for Steve, and she goes off to stop Lord, who is going to use a satellite (new cable TV technology, I suppose, for 1984), to broadcast wishes all over the world. People start wishing for others to drop dead, for money, power, etc. Chaos reigns.

Barbara sides with Lord and tries to stop Diana from stopping him. She loses. Diana manages to broadcast all over the world that people need to renounce their wishes, that having everything means the end of everything, or something like that. People begin renouncing their wishes. Lord sees his son on a camera and realizes his boy means everything to him, and he renounces his wish, too and goes to find the kid.

The movie had multiple messages, and I think this was the main objection to the movie. It hit you over the head with all of them. The characters were flat and not fleshed out as much as they could have been. The messages, while all very important (and it's too bad so many reject them), should have been secondary.

The messages?

Capitalism is bad and doesn't give equal opportunities.

Women have a tough go of it. (Men were not portrayed well in this film, except for Steve.)

Relationships are more important than things and acquiring things.

Watch what you wish for.

The biggest mistakes of the movie were not making the bad guy bad enough - you really need someone to root against in a superhero movie - and in not fleshing out the characters enough. There was not enough action in the beginning of the film.

I don't usually do film reviews, but I waited to watch this one  for a long time. To be disappointed was, well, disappointing. It is not a bad movie, but it doesn't stand up to the promise of the first one.

A third film is in the works. I understand the same writers are involved. That does not bode well, if you ask me. Patty Jenkins should stick with directing and leave the script writing to someone else.