Film Review: Wonder Woman 1984 | This is not a Wonder Woman movie

Where-as the first Wonder Woman movie felt like its own thing and a chance to redefine the female superhero movie, something that Marvel themselves hadn't done at the time of its release, and some would say Wonder Woman managed; its sequel beats a trodden path. Namely that of the Batman films. Specifically Batman Returns and Batman & Robin. We get more than one villain. A story of a geeky socially awkward woman girl turned sexy villainess. A maniacal man hellbent on making everyone bend to his will. A city / world thrust into turmoil. Wonder Woman 1984 becomes a film of tropes, off the back of a film that set it up to be anything but. Tropey films are not inherently bad. With Wonder Woman set in the 1980s and going to lengths to achieve the look, even down to being shot on film, it makes sense creatively. Stranger Things is as tropey as they come, but it was great in part because of that and how self aware it was. Yet, whilst WW84 seems like it wants to lean into this, it never really commits to it - even though film and TV villains of the 80s was clearly a source of inspiration for Pedro Pascal's performance. So WW84 is left in this weird space of wanting to be a slice of cool 80s superhero movie nostalgia that can sit alongside Richard Donner's Superman, but also wanting to be a superhero film of today. But WW84 ends up being neither, and doesn't emerge as this new breed of superhero movie that it seemed to think it would. 

The whole entire thing is just a mess.

So, the whole story is centred around some magic stone that can grant wishes. And just as you would expect, it falls into the wrong hands. But not before a couple of people, including Diana herself, manage to make wishes of their own. New girl at the museum Diana works at, Barbara Minerva (played by Kristen Wiig) makes a wish to be like Diana which turns her sexy and eventually villainous. Clear bad guy from the offset, failed oil Tycoon Maxwell Lord (played by Baby Yoda's daddy Pedro Pascal) wishes for his own successes and causes chaos. The premise is simple. But the film pretty much bobsleds its way downhill from the get-go, because nothing really makes sense, and Diana is just a dumb bitch the entire time.

The core of this film is about Diana and Steve. Yep. Steve is back again, because Diana wished him back. But here's the thing. Diana has been alive for a long ass time. She is a demigod. Themyscira has been part of wars and dealt with all types of magic and artefacts for generations; a history of which is not a secret to Amazonians. Knowing this, Diana pined for Steve for over 60 years, seemingly making no effort to find any way to bring him back. Then she happens to come across some stone which enables her to do so, but is so smitten with having that World War dick in her life that she doesn't figure that maybe it's all too good to be true. And she also has no regard for the fact that Steve didn't materialise out of thin air in his own body, but in somebody else's. And even when Diana realises what the trick with the wish stone is (because there's always a damn trick), and that Steve coming back was at the expense of her powers, she's still like 'No, it's fine, we can work it out', all the while she's bleeding and limping in the midst of a riot that's being caused BECAUSE OF THE DAMN WISH STONE.

Wonder Woman in WW84 is uncharacteristically dumb and selfish. Love can do that to you. But even so, the way this plays out is just ridiculous - regardless of how good the moments with Steve and Diana actually are. I wouldn't have minded the Diana and Steve thing if it really caused shit to hit the fan and have wider ranging repercussions, but it doesn't. And this is one of many issues with the plot in this film. WW84 has a bunch of wholly separate plot lines which are linked to one thing, but the plot lines don't really intersect in a meaningful way that makes sense. It's just a whole lot of happenstance upon happenstance, within a story that doesn't hold together.

People often dismiss logic in superhero stories, but it's an important thing that they need to establish. Because even if a story doesn't have a real world logic, it should have its own, and 1984 doesn't seem to. And the result is narrative issues and unintentional plot holes that the film doesn't seem to care that it's creating at every single turn.

It's stupid things like Diana having the ability to turn a jet invisible to avoid detection on a radar, but not thinking it'd be a good idea to do the same for a car that she's using to pursue somebody who is flanked by a security detail. Diana being concerned about being spotted in a mall, but web-slinging through the bitch and making no effort to be incognito. Maxwell Lord being able to just walk into the Oval Office, lean over the presidents' desk and grab him. How an antique jet that is sat at the Smithsonian is still operational with a full tank of fuel and able to be flown to Cairo. How a man who has to physically touch people to make wishes, is suddenly able to grant wishes at scale by being broadcast over television. How a live power line being tossed into the water can electrocute Barbara, but not Diana, who is wearing a metal suit. Yeah, she's the daughter of Zeus, but still.

Then there are bigger plot breaking things, like how the wish stone works. Maxwell wishes to become the wish stone itself, which means anybody who touches him whilst making a wish will have it granted. But he also develops this ability to mind control people after a wish is granted, and this is never really explained. When wishes are granted, things materialise and dematerialise instantly - as you would expect. But yet, when Diana grants a wish to bring Steve back, he doesn't come back in his own body. I was so confused when this random guy showed up claiming to be Steve and then suddenly became Chris Pine. I had to hop online and Google, because the film doesn't explain any of this in the moment until a good 5-10 minutes later. I don't get why the film did this, instead of just having Steve pop up out of nowhere as Chris Pine from the get-go. Not only is it nonsensical, and illogical (this dude's entirely life has been hi-jacked - surely family, friends and his co-workers would have called the police or something), but it's oh-so problematic. Especially when you consider that Diana was okay with Steve literally taking somebody else's life. Oh. And the wish stone only allows one wish per person, yet Barbara gets two. No reason as to how nor why.

Then there is the trick with wishes. When a person makes a wish, they lose something in return. With Wonder Woman, it's her powers. But with Barbara and Maxwell, what they lose feels more circumstantial than by design of the wish stone. Maxwell's wish is to become the stone personified. And after a while of granting so many wishes, he begins to lose his health. But this wasn't an obvious sign to me of what he was losing as a result of his wish, but more a side-effect of him granting so many large scale wishes - which is why I imagine the wish stone was an inanimate object and not a person in the first place. Then there is Barbara, who we're led to believe is losing her warmth and heart after seeing her beat up a drunk man in the street and fight Diana. But Barbara beating the shit out of a man who had assaulted her not once, but TWICE, and being pissed at Diana who wants to just come in and be like 'Okay, time to give your wish' whilst still swanning around with hers seemed like very reasonable reactions to me. There was no obvious sign of the fact that Barbara was losing any part of herself, which made her second wish to become 'an Apex predator' feel like it came out of absolutely nowhere, and for no reason whatsoever than to let audiences who are aware of who Barbara is in the comics know that she's about to turn into a Jellicle cat.

What would have made better sense would have been Maxwell's wish causing him to lose his son; given that he's constantly forgetting him and neglects him anyway. Barbara should have lost her intelligence, causing her to lash out in frustration, lose her job and create friction with Diana as a result of being unable to help her. Barbara's mind loss would have been an obvious sign to Diana that she was losing something, and that she had made a wish. And as Barbara continues to lose her mind, she becomes more and more feral and manifests into Cheetah. Why a Cheetah? Just have the bitch always wear Cheetah prints from the start and a Felinologist alongside being all of the other 'ologists that she is.

We've seen wishes done in films, TV shows and books countless times before. The rules are crucial and they have to be clear for any type of plot to work. And because WW84 doesn't establish the rules and laws of wishes and choses to be so ambiguous about them, the plot just falls to pieces. It's such a ridiculous oversight and one which could have easily been rectified.

The wish stone is only part of the problem though. The dynamics of some of the films themes are uneven and all over the place. Often strange, always unexplored and consistently nonsensical. 

One of the things that bogged down the first film was Diana making really stupid decisions over Steve. And in all of the years between when that happened then and now, Diana hasn't learned a damn thing. When Diana makes a wish to bring Steve back and realises it's come true, she doesn't question why or figure that something is seriously wrong, which feels so out of character for somebody who has not only been around for almost a century, but is aware of relics from God's and the trouble that they ALWAYS cause. And Diana has the audacity to judge others for things that she herself is guilty of in those moments!?

Gurl, please.

The unexplored relationship between Barbara and Diana is one of many things this film drops the ball on. There was no effort made to forge anything between these two, which would have made Barbara's arc so much more fulfilling. Diana takes no responsibility in why Barbara becomes who she becomes. When Barbara first meets Diana there is clearly something more that Barbara feels towards Diana than just sisterhood and friendship. But the film does nothing with it to the point that I wonder why we even got it in the first place. And Diana's friendship with Barbara isn't even a friendship. Diana doesn't ever treat Barbara like a friend. Her first interaction with Barbara is set up to show that she notices her in ways other don't, that she's nice and not like everybody else - but Diana is anything but warm to her. She only agrees to go to lunch with Barbara out of guilt, and to get closer to her to get access to a relic that she overhears the FBI have an interest in. Diana only calls Barbara when she needs something from her. Diana berates Barbara unfairly over getting close to Maxwell, when Barbara was upfront with how difficult it is for her to make friends because nobody sees her. Then every other interaction with Barbara just feel pointed, with Diana coming off cold and jealous. During a scene when the revelation about the wish stone comes to light, whenever Barbara speaks Diana acts like she isn't even there. Diana shows no concern for the fact that Barbara is very clearly changing in her outward appearance and demeanour - and only challenges it when Barbara pushes her ass down and sends her flying across The White House foyer and establishes herself as an obstacle between her goal. Diana is not a friend to Barbara. She's a bitch.

As a cis male there's only so much I can say about female portrayals in this film. But from my limited perspective, Patty doesn't do a great job of it. Barbara and Diana's friendship should have been the heart of this movie, but it wasn't. And the whole Barbara arc falls flat because of an absence of it.

Wonder Woman 1984 had a chance to really give Diana some female camaraderie and didn't do it. You would think given that Diana grew up on Themyscira that she would be far more inviting towards fostering a friendship with another woman who seems so free and brings a joy to her life that she herself says that she hasn't felt in a long time. It makes no sense to me. This isn't a Patty Jenkins exclusive thing though. It seems to be a common thing with superhero movies in general, that women just don't bond with other women. We've seen it for years in the Marvel movies with characters such as Black Widow in The Avengers, Gamora and Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy and even Pepper Potts. Only with Black Panther and Captain Marvel did we see this trend buck. We can have a superhero movie with a male lead who fights alongside male leads, and makes friends with men and fosters relationships with said men who become helpful. But we can't get this for female heroes?

Okay then.

Then let's talk about the age old trope of a woman being invisible when she's smart, nerdy, 'unfashionable' and wears glasses, who then suddenly becomes a sexy tight outfit villain when she gains confidence by supernatural means. It's as tired as the day is long. WW84 could have offered a cool spin on this trope in some way, but nope. It truly was 80s in its approach. It really is as basic as nerdy woman acquires confidence via magic, becomes 'hot' in the eyes of the male gaze, no longer needs prescription glasses and then goes on a power trip as a fashionable villain.

Patty being a woman with the Wonder Woman franchise in her hands should have done a far better job than she did here. It would have made more sense to me for Diana to be a man hater. I'm not saying this is a direction the film should have gone in, but it would have made far more sense to me than the dismissive way Diana is of Barbara, and the risks she was willing to take for Steve in the first Wonder Woman movie and again in WW84. Diana is once again reduced to just pining over a man. Even with Diana seeing how men are trash with first-hand witnessing them invading Themyscira and then knowing the story of how men enslaved Amazonians. She's still dickmatised. And Barbara takes it upon herself to become Maxwell's bodyguard to ensure Diana doesn't do anything to him that could jeopardise her wish. So now she's at the mercy of some man. 

What in the fuck?!

Quite a big thing which isn't really touched on is why Diana is reluctant to be Wonder Woman, despite the film going out of its way at least twice to show us this. Once with the interception of the mall heist at the start of the film, and again when she realises that she's losing her powers because of her wish to bring back Steve. She's just like 'I'mma pack it up'.

Instead of the film giving us a 15 minute sequence of Diana's childhood, we should have gotten something which shows what life has been like for Diana for the the past 60 plus years since we last saw her - to help provide context as to why she's reluctant to be Wonder Woman and live her life in the shadows. It also would have better tied into what was supposed to be the theme of the movie, which is accepting the truth and living your life in it - something that we honestly didn't need the intro for. And even with it, Steve was the reminder of that lesson, not Antiope and her own mother. It's really strange to me that in two Wonder Woman movies we have gotten these long ass scenes on Themyscira showing women being strong and teaching lessons that have NOTHING to do with men, to then become a film about Diana making decisions centred on some man. Sure, she renounces her wish. But only because Steve tells her that she needs to and fully makes peace with it himself.

Wonder Woman doesn't really impart with the lessons that it should. Truth is important, yes. But one thing that the film perpetuates from the beginning is that wealth and looking pretty will always get you places. Even down to Diana not allowing Steve to just wear what he likes. It's a privilege that Diana herself has that she is very aware of. But, fuck it. Because she can't be bothered to do that Wonder Woman shit. And if it ain't got anything to do with Steve, then why should she bother!? The film hankers down on the life of Maxwell Lord growing up poor and his relationship with his son at the very end of the movie to try and part some kind of lesson, but it feels so unearned and does absolutely nothing to justify why Maxwell went to the lengths that he did. And it's still a story of looking pretty and having money will get you places. This is a case as to why making Maxwell lose his son would have made far more sense - with Maxwell saying that he's doing everything to be somebody and make his son proud, and not even realising that his son is what was traded for his wish, because he's too busy doing everything but be a present father. This would have been the most obvious thing that gets Maxwell to renounce his wish. It also would have drawn a reverse parallel to Diana's situation on having to give up somebody that she was willing to die for.

WW84 also ties everything up in too nice a bow. Everybody who made wishes renounces them, JUST like that. Neither Barbara or Maxwell face any repercussions for all that they did. I was expecting at least one of them to die or go to prison. But nope. Barbara still has her Kat Slater wardrobe. Maxwell still has a business and has his son. Diana is the only one that loses at the end and is right back where she pretty much started. So, what was the point in this story really?

Wonder Woman 1984 is also strange in the sense that it feels like everything is taking place a vacuum, with no real sense of it existing in a world in which there are clear parallels. During WW84 we see a woman be a victim of assault, women being harassed, riots on the streets, tensions between nations reach boiling point and xenophobia - but they serve as nothing but a backdrop. Barbara's assault just serves as a reference point to show the audience that she's becoming 'unhinged' as a result of her newly acquired strength. The tensions between nations and the riots is just to show that Maxwell Lord is out of control. The xenophobia served no purpose at all. A white woman wishes an Irish guy would go back to where he came from (a popular line here in England, that I'd been told many times as a kid) and the Irish guy in return wishes the woman were dead, and she then has a heart attack. But after Diana gives her lasso Ted talk on truth, the guy renounces his wish. Now, I'm not saying homegirl deserved to die for her xenophobia, but to make it THAT cut and dry!? To have the guy renounce his wish, with there being no remorse or visible renouncing from the woman who made the xenophobic comment? I was just sat like 'Why include such a scene in the first fucking place!?'. Then there is that whole situation in Egypt and the Middle East which should have just been left alone. I get that Maxwell Lord is in the business of oil, but no. They shoulda just taken that shit to Texas instead.

There's a lot of tone deafness in this film touching on serious world issues which have been massive headlines over the past couple of years alone as window dressings and nothing more. I'm not saying that Wonder Woman needed to make a commentary on these things. But to include such moments in such a shallow fashion was a choice, and a weird one at that. Because the plot, the characters, none of them hinge on any of these things anyway. WW84 wanted woke points for saying absolutely nothing at all.

Some may draw parallels between Maxwell Lord and Trump, and it wouldn't be a reach. But I feel these types of megalomaniac villains are so common in TV and films, particularly superhero films, and have been for years. So I didn't see Maxwell at a White House podium and think 'Oh, that orange bitch'. If anything that Orange bitch is taking pages out of a superhero villain handbook.

Speaking of villains, I will say that 1984 has far better villains than the first film, but they're still under-baked, because their setups feel so poor. Everything about these villains reaching villain status feels accelerated in a plot which is so slow to move, and it imbalances the entire film. Diana also has no real connection to either Barbara or Maxwell. There was a chance to at least build something between Diana and Barbara, so that there was at least one arc which had emotional investment in it for Diana outside of Steve, but nope. And Diana's pursuit of Maxwell is just to stop him granting wishes. He doesn't actually do anything that impacts her directly, and the film makes no effort to even give them a shared circumstance. 

Barbara wishing to be like Diana and then becoming Cheetah should have really fucked with Diana and made her question herself as to why somebody wanting to be her didn't create another hero strong in their pursuit of justice - in which she realises that her powers are not what define her, but her heart and her intent of how she uses them for good. Maxwell Lord wishing for riches and willing to bring the world in which he has a son crashing down should have made Diana angry, given how much she values family, and that one thing that she would have wanted with Steve eventually is a family. And when she watches Egypt and the US thrust into turmoil, Diana doesn't feel any sense of PTSD or sense of having seen such things before when men invaded Themyscira - even though Steve came into her life via an invasion of her home, and she tells him the origin of Asteria's armour, which was born of another.

The motive of each villain is shallow, and narratively serves no purpose than to create enough chaos that Diana has to do something. Barbara decides she likes being able to wear tight dresses and thigh high boots to such an extent she's willing to fight Diana to keep doing it, and then decides 'Fuck it, I'll become Bombalurina'. Maxwell Lord decides to make wishes to save his business, but then decides he's just gonna grant everybody's wishes...for no reason other than he can. It's stupid and robs both characters of a truly villainous purpose or that one thing that makes them terrible. Even if just for a moment.

The villains and the setting of this this movie do not serve Diana in any way. They don't break her, nor do they help her realise anything about herself or the world that she lives in. There's no real interconnecting between these characters and the way in which events unfold - because everything would have just happened the same way regardless. If it wasn't Diana, then Barbara would have wanted to be some other well-dressed bitch in heels with the hair pressed, and wished for that. Maxwell's business going under meant he would always keep wishing to build his empire. And Diana wishing Steve back and realising he's the reason she's losing her powers would mean she would always have to give him up at some point.

It's a real shame, because Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal are both great in this film. They're so overblown and campy in all the right ways, which makes them a joy to watch. Their performances do a lot of the heavy lifting. Pedro Pascal in particular is a highlight. WW84 honestly feels like his film more than it does Wonder Woman's. But having both Barbara and Maxwell in this film together was a mistake, because it causes the film to feel to unfocused. Giving each of them their moment to be the main villain in their own Wonder Woman films would have been a far better decision. Barbara was only flung in here with Maxwell to give Diana a fight scene at the end of the film. A scene which wasn't even a fight. That shit was Cirque du Soleil on electricity pylons. Which sounds great on paper, but was a mess here. 

The plot to this film is less about these villains and more about the device that makes them villains, which is some magic piece of damn rock. 

The pacing of Wonder Woman 1984 also feels incredibly slow. The film doesn't truly start until about 20 minutes in, and quite honestly, the film should have started at the point from which we see Diana dining alone. We didn't need that flashback on Themyscira. And we didn't need that mall scene either. Neither felt relevant, nor did anything to push the story forward.

We didn't need a 15 minute introduction showing Diana as a girl learning about the power of honesty, because we know that this is a lesson Diana has learned and knows well. It's why the fuck she's Wonder Woman and one of the reasons she can wield the damn lasso of truth in the first place. Then there's the scene in the mall, which felt completely unnecessary. The tone of the scene was nice, as was seeing so much colour and clear establishment of this film being set in the 80s. It genuinely felt like an 80s superhero movie. But the scene added nothing to the film and it wasn't that fun to watch. It felt like it was just slapped there to give us an action sequence where we see the Wonder Woman suit, because without it, we wouldn't have seen it for a whole hour.

The Themyscira scene serves to set up the lesson that victory claimed by dishonesty is not a victory. And sure, there is a moment at the end of the film where Diana pulls on this lesson to come out victorious - but this moment wouldn't have felt any lesser had we not had that intro sequence. And the thing that makes Diana recall that lesson isn't that day on Themyscira, it's Steve. And to have Diana just sat crying on the floor giving that whole monologue was also a missed opportunity to have Wonder Woman go on television to broadcast the message. It would have been a great impetus to get people to renounce their wishes if it came from her, rather than some random voice. And it would have given Diana a moment to step into her own truth, which is that she can't keep being Wonder Woman in the shadows. 

The Themyscira intro felt lazy, because given the set up, it is so damn obvious that what you're watching in this moment is going to be how Diana will win or overcome whatever obstacle she faces in the final act of the movie. The lesson of truth also felt like something that Barbara should have been told, or maybe Barbara told Diana - had the film set up that friendship to be something meaningful from the beginning.

Wonder Woman 1984 would have benefitted from being cut down. It wouldn't have fixed the film by a long shot, but it would have made me resent it less for taking up two and a half hours of my time. I don't get what it is with these DC movies and these unnecessarily long run times. It's why I roll my eyes every time I hear about this damn Synder cut of Justice League, because it seems so built on the premise that making Justice League longer will some how magically make it better. The first Wonder Woman also suffered from a bloated runtime. It felt like it had an intro that was too long and should have had an act removed. 1984 it's the same shit. The final act of the movie is also far too long. Diana's whole monologue goes on for so long that by the time you realise the point of it, you're already over the entire moment and just want the damn film to end.

Visually Wonder Woman 1984 is not an awful looking film. One of the biggest visual criticisms of the first film is that everything became so dull after Themyscira, which was so rich with colour. 1984 is a bold and colourful film from the outset. Wonder Woman's outfit looks amazing and pops with colour whenever it's on-screen. But, as per what seems to be a DC tradition, the big climax fight with Cheetah at the end is just a dull looking affair with everything in dark hues and really low light to hide the trash CGI. This leads me to believe that the only reason that Patty had Diana wear Asteria's armour was so it would stand out more than the regular outfit and we wouldn't completely lose Diana in the action, as opposed to building and a scene and creating a colour palette that would have done the work.

The special effects are raggedy. If it was intentional to make WW84 look like it was made in the 80s, then Patty did great. If not, then Patty will need to make sure she's on regular calls with ILM when Rogue Squadron goes into post production. There are so many moments moments in this film where it's difficult to tell if the dodgy special effects shot are intentional of not. Such as the scene when Wonder Woman gets her powers back, and she starts running through the street. It's like she's air walking. But you can't tell whether Patty wanted it to look like this because Wonder Woman is about to fly, or the special effects team just fucked up the shot. Then there's the lasso of truth, which she uses constantly throughout this film. The glow from it sometimes affects the surroundings and is reflected on surfaces, sometimes it isn't. And there are times when Diana goes to grab it, but is barely touching it, yet it's unfurling and flying all about the place. And the final act of the film where Diana fights Barbara who is now full-blown Cheetah is so clearly graded and lit in a way to mask how bad Cheetah looks. The whole entire scene is awful to a point where it completely steals the moment from how badass Gal Gadot looks in Asteria's golden armour.

The action sequences in this film are a mess and inconsistent. Often times it's very difficult to get a sense of space, positioning and the sequence in which things are happening. It truly makes you appreciate the action sequences in Marvel's The Winter Soldier and tAvengers: Endgame, where there is SO much shit going on logistically, and yet you never feel like you're lost in what's going on. 

Every action sequence in WW84 will have one amazing freeze frame moment, but everything either side of it is just this mess, and a case of watching Wonder Woman slide around. Wonder Woman also has no sense of power, because there is no momentum or force to anything she does. It's one thing to be graceful, but Wonder Woman feels a weightless puppet just floating around. There's no impact when she attacks, when she whips the lasso, when she's fucking up armoured trucks. It's distracting.

Patty Jenkins just isn't great with action sequences generally. Lord help that Rogue Squadron movie.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a complete and utter mess. It tries to do too many things and be all the things, only to end up being nothing. WW84 also has no identity of its own, which is weird coming off the back of a film which did and was directed by the same person. Many comic book and superhero fans will notice the parallels between this and other movies in the DC roster such as Superman and Batman Returns. But it doesn't have the flair, the conviction or compelling enough arcs for it to come close to pulling off what these films did.

But even in the midst of all of the things that this film does wrong, the worst crime it commits is not being a Wonder Woman movie at all. This is a film about Steve and Maxwell Lord, which features Barbara and Diana. No matter how good Diana looks, this is not her movie. And that's the biggest failure of Wonder Woman 1984.

Verdict: Patty Jerkins did Diana dirtier than Michael