[5.8/10] So many movies don’t get the basics right: characters who want something, themes to grapple with, setups and payoffs. Too often, those essential building blocks to storytelling are just set aside for reasons beyond me. That should make it refreshing when a movie like Wonder Woman 1984 comes along, with a story specifically founded on what its characters want, centered around a clear theme, that establishes details before they become relevant later in the film.
The catch is that while WW84 checks all those boxes, it doesn’t do any of these things terribly well, let alone advance to the next level and really make magic out of the combination of people and events that make up the movie. Particularly when it comes to superhero franchises (or sub-franchises), the first movie has to introduce the main character and their world, while the sequel can use that as a springboard to really play. This movie aims to do more than its 2017 predecessor, built around those core storytelling components, but then proceeds to make a mess of its wider ambit.
That starts with the hamfistedness of pretty much everything in the movie. There is absolutely no subtlety or nuance in WW84. The characters practically announce what they want (the conceit of the film all but demands it). An authority figure essentially declares the film’s moral in the opening segment. And if that all weren’t enough, Wonder Woman herself basically looks directly at the audience and tells us the point and overall message of the picture. If you missed what Wonder Woman 1984 was trying to do or say, you were either asleep or, more understandably, lost in the hash it makes of these ideas despite its directness.
The theme boils down to some combination of “Don’t take shortcuts,” “Be careful what you wish for,” and “Think about the wider costs of your individual wants.” Director-writer Patty Jenkins and co-writers Geoff Johns and David Callaham oversimplify those notions in the script, but there’s worse stars to steer by. The problem comes from two extremes: one is the bluntness of how plainly the film states its thesis on these topics and the other is how it loses itself in purple prose trying to dress them as something profound rather than trite. The mix leaves all three central ideas feeling under-realized over the course of the film.
Part of that is the premise. The central MacGuffin in the film is a magic rock that grants people wishes, but as is eventually revealed, also extracts a price for it. As silly as that sounds on paper, it’s a perfectly acceptable comic book-y idea to deploy here. There’s even potential to explore the costs of getting what we want by taking this shortcut, both to ourselves and to our communities.
But the rules are confusing and seemingly arbitrary, and divined by hero and villain alike with little logic. People have to be in contact with the stone to make their wish, but apparently can undo the effects by simply declaring “I renounce my wish!” a la Michael Scott. The legend of the stone says that it takes what you value the most in exchange for granting the wish, but when bad guy Maxwell Lord “becomes” the stone, he can apparently just decide what to take from people when they make their wishes. And the contact rule also goes out the window when Lord takes advantage of vague “particle” technology that makes seeing him on the TV screen as good as holding his hand for some reason.
Any single one of these things would be a stretch but perfectly tolerable within the outsized confines of a superhero movie. But stacking them on top of one another, in addition to plenty of other smaller contrivances and conveniences and headscratchers, leaves the film feeling like it doesn’t play by its own rules, and instead just makes up whatever it needs to in order to hurry things along to the next scene.
Some of that’s understandable, because the plot quickly becomes the least interesting part of the movie, WW84 finds an excuse to bring Chris Pine back as Steve Trevor and, as with the 2017 film, every scene of Wonder Woman and Trevor together is better than every scene without the two of them. Pine and Gadot continue to have great chemistry, and the combination of reversing the “fish out of water” dynamic from the last one, and the inherent joy and tragedy of reunion and loss, makes them the strongest element of the film.
Alas, the same can’t be said for the villains. Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah is a “baby’s first” version of Michelle Pfeifer’s Catwoman from Batman Returns. The homage seems to be a deliberate one, replete with power lines, but that just makes Barbara Minerva’s cartoony affect and transformation all the more lacking by comparison. There’s the germ of something good with Minerva feeling invisible and unsure, seeking popularity and poise, but it’s lost in a bunch of over-the-top moments that dampen any humanity at the center of the idea.
The same goes for Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord, who seems part a commentary on Donald Trump and part a rejection of the “Greed Is Good” ethos that WW84 hopes to combat when invoking this era of American History. Pascal goes for broke in the performance, but the character is so thin, with a last minute depositing of backstory and presto-changeo change of heart that leaves him like so many other characters here -- more one-dimensional than he should be.
Some of the film’s more substantive failings would be easier to ignore if it were just more fun to watch and nicer to look at. Despite a solid opening sequence where a young Diana runs through a Themyscira obstacle course, most of the action here is unavailing at best. The CGI, frankly, looks pretty terrible, with tons of obvious green-screening and movements that lack weight or recognizable fluidity.
Some of that can be chalked up to superhumans doing superhuman things, but much of it just comes down to a flat weak aesthetic mixed with unconvincing special effects. The direction is largely indifferent outside of that opening triathlon riff, and the look of Wonder Woman’s lassoing and ass-kicking and flight feel neither real enough to pass muster or impressionsitic enough to feel artistic.
That’s right, Wonder Woman learns to fly here, another nod to her powers in the comics. Along with the invisible jet and her magic super armor, the movie comes up with a plausible enough bit of setup to where these developments don’t feel completely out of the blue, and yet most of them still feel underdeveloped -- pieces that wouldn’t make sense if they weren’t references to something else in the character’s publication history, with only the barest of scaffolding to keep them from being totally random. There’s at least a minor emotional resonance to Diana taking flight after accepting the renewed loss of her true love/pilot boyfriend, but it’s still undercooked.
That’s true for so much in Wonder Woman 1984. The basic foundation is there. The characters have desires and lose something in the pursuit of them. The film wears its themes on its sleeves. And however rushed the setup may be, most of the developments in the film have some minor preparation for them in the early going.
But once you move beyond those simple building blocks, Jenkins and company make a hash of pretty much everything else. The film soon becomes an overlong, over-the-top, ugly muddle of a movie. It proves that you can fulfill the basic requirements and still fail as a movie by not doing them very well, let alone matching the feats of your protagonist, and soaring above them.
