Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, and Robin Wright, with a cameo from Lynda Carter
Grade: B-

Was that guy really supposed to be Ronald Reagan? He didn’t look or sound like him at all.

Summary

To open, Wonder Woman/Diana (Gadot) narrates and reminisces of when she was a child. We are taken back to this time period on the Amazonian island of Themyscira, where a young Diana competes in an athletic competition against adult Amazons. Diana’s mother and Queen of the Amazons in Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) watches the competition in the arena they begin in. Just before things start, Diana’s mentor, Hippolyta’s sister, and general of the Amazon army Antiope (Wright) wishes her luck. The competition, reminiscent of Ninja Warrior, goes well for the most part. By the time they get on their horses for the racing portion, Diana is firmly in the lead. Unfortunately, she is knocked off her horse by a tree after looking back at her opponents. She loses her lead, so she takes a shortcut to get back on her horse. However, she misses the checkpoint showing every person’s progress throughout the race. Diana catches back up and looks like she’s about to win. All she needs to do is throw a spear through a gigantic hoop back at the arena. Just when she’s about to do it, Antiope physically stops her, grabbing her and the spear from her hand. Some woman named Asteria wins instead. Antiope calls Diana out for cheating and tells her “No true hero is born from lies”. Hippolyta consoles Diana and tells her how her time will come. Then, she points out how Asteria did things in all the right ways, telling Diana that she will eventually get there.

In Washington D.C. in 1984, we get a glimpse of the landscape as some woman jogs. During this sequence, we see television personality Max Lord (Pascal) in a commercial promoting Black Gold Cooperative, a company trying to get people to invest in potential riches revolving around oil. Right after, the jogging woman is almost hit by a car until Diana saves her. After Diana saves a bride from falling off a bridge, we see a group of criminals breaking into a jewelry store in a mall. The store is actually a front too. They secretly stash black market artifacts in the back of it for re-selling purposes. The group knows this, and they grab a bunch of artifacts and almost escape, until one of the bumbling robbers drops his gun in front of a stranger. She screams, and the entire place is alerted of the criminals. The one guy panics and grabs a child when he’s cornered by security, and he holds the girl over the deck, threatening to drop her. Just then, Diana swoops in to save the day. Taking out all the cameras in the mall first, because Wonder Woman’s identity is still a secret, she saves the kid, takes out the bad guys, and throws them on a cop car ready to be arrested. Getting home, we see that all the pictures in Diana’s place depict the people she met during World War I, during the first Wonder Woman. This includes a picture of Captain Steve Trevor (Pine) and the watch he gave Diana before his death in the climax of the previous film. To this very day, she’s still lonely and thinks about Steve.

The next day, Barbera (Wiig) shows up to work. She’s a bit awkward and quirky and doesn’t seem to have any friends. She’s goes to work at the Smithsonian Institution. In classic supervillain origin fashion, she drops the papers she was carrying, but no one walking by decides to help her, except for Diana. Diana works at the Smithsonian now in cultural anthropology and archaeology. Barbera herself covers geology, gemology, lithology, and cryptozoology. Barbera is incredibly happy with Diana going out of her way to help her, so she asks her to lunch, seeing this as an opportunity to make a friend. Diana turns her down because of her busyness, though she leaves the door open for the future. They are interrupted by a superior who tells Barbera she will be looking at some artifacts the FBI is bringing in from the jewel store heist Diana secretly stopped. When Barbera examines the artifacts, Diana drops in to greet her and to check things out for herself. One artifact in particular seems to be a fake. Barbera notes this because this rock-like object is made out of citrine, a “classic stone used in fakes throughout history”. Diana examines it and reads the Latin inscription on the object. It says, “Place upon the object held but one great wish”. Barbera deduces this as some lucky charm, so some co-worker puts his hand on it and wishes for a coffee as a joke. Immediately after, another co-worker offers him a coffee for a co-worker not there that day. The guy happily accepts, smiling at this crazy coincidence. Not that Diana or Barbera buy into this thing being a wishing well per say, but as Barbera talks about the possibility and how she wouldn’t know what to wish for, Diana grasps it and wishes privately to herself because she knows exactly what she would want if it could happen.

Before Diana departs, she offers help at any time, and Barbera awkwardly thanks Diana for talking to her. Seeing how lonely Barbera is, Diana offers to go get some dinner with her, so Barbera happily accepts.

Back at Diana’s place, Steve’s watch miraculously starts ticking again.

At dinner, Diana and Barbera discuss love, and Diana tells her about Steve without naming him directly. On her walk home, Barbera gives some food to some homeless guy she’s friends with. Afterwards, she gets harassed by some drunk, prompting Diana to show up out of nowhere and take the guy out. A thankful Barbera goes back to work that night to find the stone, wishing to be like Diana and everything that comes with it. The next morning, Barbera wakes up in her office. She changes her outfit a little bit, and everyone in the workplace starts to notice her. Following this, her superior brings in TV’s Max Lord because he apparently is considering becoming a friend of the Smithsonian at the partner level. As a result, this entitles him to a handful of private tours of their facilities, and he asked for Barbera by name. Evidently, he knows of her work and notes their shared passion for gemology. Barbera goes into her office for a bit, so Max looks in and sees the stone. He is very aware of what it does. Even so, they head out together for the tour. Later, it’s clear Max has befriended Barbera. As they talk at work, Diana shows up. She’s not aware of who he is because she doesn’t own a TV. Barbera tells her about him and says Max has been nice enough to pledge his entire donation to their department. He’s making the announcement official at that night’s Members’ Gala, though Diana isn’t going. Following this, Max heads to his place of work. After being greeted by his secretary Raquel (Gabriella Wilde), he gets to his office floor. There, we see the barren wasteland that is his floor. The entire place is empty, he’s the only person who works there (along with Raquel), and the place is dirty, with papers and things everywhere. Basically, he’s on the verge of bankruptcy because he’s a fraud and his company is failing.

As he looks through all his “past due” notices and other mail while heading up to his floor, he runs into his son Alistair (Lucian Perez). It’s his weekend to watch him, and Raquel wasn’t able to tell Max until he saw him. A bit shocked but still happy to see his son, Max tells him they’ll have a pool soon enough, along with all the other things he promised him. It just takes time to be a success. As he takes Alistair into his office, Simon Stagg (Oliver Cotton) interrupts as he was already waiting there. He’s an investor in Black Gold Cooperative, and he’s not happy with Max’s performance, pointing out how Max is spewing the same lies to his own son. Max promises Simon they’re on the verge of turning the company around and how they have millions of acres of potentially oil-rich land, but Simon did some digging and knows he has oil rights on land everyone else passed on already. Simon calls him a con man and says Max has 48 hours to get him his money, or the FTC gets an anonymous report. Once Simon storms out after calling him a loser, Max turns to see that Alistair was listening to the entire conversation. A distraught Max tells Alistair that Simon is wrong, and Alistair will be proud to be his son. He insists everyone will be wrong about him. Back at the Smithsonian, Diana looks for the stone but can’t find it, though she sees Max Lord’s name on the paperwork in the container it came in. Elsewhere, Barbera continues to adapt her look, straying far away from her dorky attire and moving to one similar to Diana’s.

At the Members’ Gala, Diana shows up looking for Max. Barbera also shows up and turns everyone’s heads much like how Diana is used to doing. Barbera and Max meet. Following some obvious flirting, they go into Barbera’s office to make out. His ulterior motives are obvious though. Soon after they kiss, Max compliments her office and asks about the stone on her desk. She says she’s not sure about the details regarding it, so he assures her he has a friend in Roman antiquities that could take a look at it. Though she’s not sure if she should let go of it, she relents because of Max’s persuasiveness. In her defense, a make out session throws anyone off. The same is true here, as Max puts the stone in his pocket. Meanwhile, Diana continues to search through the party for Max and runs into some random guy who tries to get her attention. She brushes him off, but she stops in her tracks when he says, “I wish we had more time”. As we remember, this was part of the last thing Steve Trevor said to her before his death in the first Wonder Woman. Startled but intrigued, Diana wonders why he said that. Surprisingly, this guy gives her his watch in the same manner Steve did and repeats the classic line he said before, “I can save today, but you can save the world”. Before her very eyes, the man’s face changes. Steve is alive! He’s back! The Dreamstone brought him back to life because of her wish! Though neither knows how Steve is back, they still kiss, incredibly happy to be together again. They take a walk, and Steve says he only remembers taking the plane into the sky and doesn’t remember anything following this. He just woke up on a futon in 1984.

They go back to the place of the guy whose body he inhabited, and Steve talks about how he woke up, looked her up in the phone book, and went out searching for her. Once he looks in the mirror, we see that to the outside world, Steve looks like this random guy. However, when Diana looks at him, she sees Steve in the flesh. Meanwhile, Max goes right back to his office with the Dreamstone and makes a wish to become the Dreamstone. As a result, the stone disintegrates and becomes a part of him, giving him the ability to grant wishes like a genie. The next morning, Barbera wakes up and pulls her fridge door completely off. Her powers are getting stronger by the day. At the same time, Diana wakes up in bed with Steve, who just found out what Pop-Tarts are, and he’s been eating them all morning. Though they want to stay in bed, Diana decides they need to find out how a stone was able to bring him back.

As we see Barbera kill it in the gym, Max goes to meet Simon and apologizes to him, admitting how he knew things were failing a long time ago because the wells were coming up dry and no data suggested things were going to change. He talks about how he wished Black Gold could change their world for the better. Grabbing Simon’s hands, he goads Simon into saying he wished for this as well. His demeanor then changes. He tells Simon his wish is granted. In return, Max says he will take all of Simon’s shares and full control of Black Gold after Simon is somehow “magically removed” from his path. Upon leaving, federal agents show up to Simon’s work with a warrant out for his arrest for a federal taxation crime. Basically, this is how Max’s powers work now that he has become the Dreamstone. As Diana shows Steve the world he’s missed regarding fashion, culture, and technological achievements, Max goes to work to see Raquel answering constant phone calls. They’ve been running off the hook because the wells have found oil. Black Gold has struck it rich! Investors and everyone else are calling in to be a part of the company. Now, they need some help, so Max goads Raquel into wishing for more employees to aide her. Just then, people start showing up in seconds looking for a job, and Max hires them all on the spot to help out. As he gets a call from the Wall Street Journal about his company’s sudden surge in success and him taking it in his office, we cut to the Smithsonian where a confident Barbera is chatting it up with her co-workers, and they’re all eating it up. Diana shows up with Steve, and they take her into the office to ask about the whereabouts of the Dreamstone. Barbera tells her Max has it. A frustrated Diana chastises her for loaning it out when they don’t even own it, so her and Steve leave to go find him.

They break into Max’s office when he isn’t there and find years of research material relating to the Dreamstone. Max was searching for this thing for a while. Diana finds the remnants of it and once she re-reads a portion of the Latin inscription, she realizes it’s the language of the gods. She calls Barbera for help and asks her to find out exactly where the stone was found. This stone could spell doom because if the gods created it, there was a purpose that could potentially yield disastrous results. In the meantime, they have to find Max. Searching through his trash, they see he’s travelling to Cairo, Egypt to discuss expansion opportunities with another rich oil tycoon. Things are just getting started because it turns out the power of the Dreamstone knows no bounds, but there is a catch. Unfortunately, this catch could spell the end of the world if it’s in the wrong hands. Considering Max is the Dreamstone, doomsday may come.

My Thoughts:

Unfortunately, Wonder Woman 1984 was not the film its predecessor was. However, it’s not the “franchise killer” some would like you to believe.

Was it everything we hoped it was coming out of Wonder Woman? Not exactly, but was it entertaining enough to be considered a worthy sequel? I’d like to think so.

First of all, seeing Gal Gadot return as the titular character already makes it worth the watch. Yes, there were countless issues from the narrative to the details of certain characters that stops the film from reaching its true potential, but you can’t sit there and tell me there wasn’t a lot of fun to be had here. Once again, it begins and ends with our star. Gadot is still just as good as she was in the first film. Though she retains the qualities of a fearless warrior ready to defend those in need, she’s much more calculated in her approach following years of battle scars obtained since her early years in the war effort. Diana is not walking in and destroying everything in her path as she sees fit, as she has noticeably adjusted to life with the human race. In doing so, her joyous demeanor is not as present as it once was. Life has changed Diana. She’s not as outwardly positive as she was before, mostly because human life has made her a bit jaded. Sure, she still loves saving people and protecting people, but we can see she’s not as loud and proud as we saw her be in the first Wonder Woman. Obviously, she’s got a better handle on the social norms considering this takes place sixty-six years after the first movie, so she’s not going to act like some wild warrior princess, but it’s more than that. Her love is missing, and her passion has gone with it. Despite Diana performing her regular duties as a hero, she goes to an empty home and forces herself to be content with what her life has come to be. Diana has become closed off and just goes about doing her job at the Smithsonian and fighting crime on the side, knowing she has nothing else in her life going for her. She’s forced to accept that this is it.

Despite the short amount of time she spent with Captain Steve Trevor, he was everything to her, and it’s affected Diana to this very day. His desire to end the war for the sake of the human race was what inspired her to believe in humanity when they started falling out of favor to her. Once she goes to her lonely home following a long day at work, we get small shots of the memories she has held onto of Steve and World War I, with numerous pictures and the watch he gave her before he sacrificed himself at the end of Wonder Woman. Diana thinks about him all the time and never got over his death, despite the amount of time passing between both films. This is what I loved the most about this sequel. If you read my review of the first film, you know how much I adored the chemistry and love angle between Diana and Steve. It carried the film. With Steve’s death being such a big part of the ending of Wonder Woman, I was a little worried about how they would make up the ground covered by Chris Pine in this sequel, being that he was the backbone of the first movie. It seemed like everyone behind the making of Wonder Woman 1984 recognized Steve’s importance and figured out this “magical” way to bring him back. Though it did make things a bit bloated, it gave Diana the closure she has needed after all these years. Now, there are some clear elements of the narrative that should have been cut entirely to make a smoother film, but the inclusion of Pine’s Steve Trevor was not one of those things. It added a lot of intrigue, humor, romance, and passion into the story just as Diana needed it. Since she didn’t have a friendship with really anyone else at the beginning story, we see how much Steve impacted her life. It only makes sense for her to get one more opportunity with him.

It’s either this or we give her some funny sidekick she can converse with. However, if you go this route, you still have to devout some screentime to developing this relationship, which they don’t really have time for. Another positive of bringing Steve back is that you already get a built-in story, humorous moments with Pine taking over the fish-out-of-water role Gadot played in the first movie, and a proven commodity that brings back fans of the first film because of the known chemistry between Pine and our star. With the built-in story and track record of these two, more time can be used to develop the story around the Dreamstone and new characters like Max Lord and Barabara.

Maybe it’s the Saturday Night Live fan in me, but it was just hard to see Kristen Wiig in the role of a supervillain. It wasn’t convincing enough, especially when her initial introduction was the “awkward” humor that we’ve seen her do a thousand times before. Every story beat involving her character was as predictable as it comes. Right from the beginning, we knew she was going to somehow become the villain opposite of Diana. How do we know? As I mentioned in the summary, they used the most cliché “supervillain origin” moment ever constructed. This is where the intelligent, good-hearted, anti-social person drops a stack of papers and asks for help, but everyone walks by until the superhero decides to stop and do so. If you’ve seen enough of these films, you’ve seen this moment hundreds of times. It’s the 2020s! We’re still relying on this tired trope to develop an antagonist? Later on, we see the slow build of Barbara becoming the supervillain we know she’s going to be but because of its predictability, a lot of scenes involving her become redundant. All it does is extend the running time when this could have been avoided if some scenes were just tighter and included more dialogue or moments that got to the point. Wonder Woman 1984 would have benefitted greatly had they skipped 30-50% of Barbara’s “humorous” scenes, or one’s where she builds up sympathy, and just turned her into the Cheetah earlier to make her seem like more of a threat.

The more that came out of Barbera’s mouth, the more we come to the realization that this is just an unconvincing Kristen Wiig trying to act tough. She so adamant on why she refuses to renounce her wish, but why is she? She’s not a bad person to begin with, so surely, she should see why everything around her is falling apart. Also, with the exception of the superpowers, she can have everything she gains from the wish just by changing her fashion sense. If she enjoys the attention that she’s getting currently from how she’s dressing and acting towards others, all of this is achievable on her own without the Dreamstone. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. However, considering the character is a genius, she has even less of a reason to go in this direction. How come she’s so fixated on this wish? Are the powers even worth it at that point? She turned into a fucking cheetah! If anything, she should be begging Diana to help her change back. I’d much rather be a human being without superpowers than a living cheetah! Are we honestly supposed to believe that Barabara loses her mind in that quick of fashion just because she wants superpowers that she didn’t even know existed a week previously? I don’t know, but as soon as I start gaining animalistic features, I would start reconsidering my stance on what is the right thing to do and what is the wrong thing to do.

Though a great one-on-one battle, the final fight between Wonder Woman and Cheetah was a bit perplexing. How the hell does Diana electrocute Cheetah by grabbing the loose powerline and dipping it into the water, but Diana isn’t affected at all by the shock of electricity? First of all, her suit of gold is a conductor, so she 100% should have been affected by this from a logical standpoint. If we’re talking about it in terms of the story in a superhuman sense, does she avoid it because she’s at full strength because she renounced her wish and Cheetah is weakened because she didn’t renounce hers? Is this why Diana is actually wounded by a bullet in the first act? However, if she’s impervious to bullets without being tied to the Dreamstone, why does she use her wrist guards to block bullets in the first place? Going along with logistical questions, why does she struggle so much in the chase scene in the desert? She can jump like 30 feet into the air. Why can’t she just jump over everything and pull Max directly out of the first car without going through everyone else? Based off of what we know about her powers, none of what she did in this action sequence felt necessary. Actually, if we’re being honest, the action sequences took a step back in general compared to the first film. The opening robbery was outrageously corny, the tag team match in the White House wasn’t as big as it should have been, and I actually laughed at the end of the desert chase. You’re telling me a group of kids were miraculously playing in the street, in the middle of the desert, just as a convoy of military trucks were cruising by, and they somehow managed too not here the cars coming? Come on!

The CGI when Diana swung in using her lasso to grab the kids looked awful as well. The whole thing came off as comical because of the outlandishness of the scenario. Inserting kids into the situation when they had no business being there is something you put in a parody of an action film, not a serious superhero movie.

With Wonder Woman 1984, they go in the route of making another plain clothes civilian the ultimate villain. It didn’t really work with Sir Patrick in Wonder Woman, and though it’s not necessarily perfect with Maxwell Lord, it’s much better with him. This is mostly because Pedro Pascal was an absolute delight. He nailed every bit of the cheesy, informercial shyster looking to make a buck, and he’s quite amusing as he does it. His descent into madness is also a lot of fun, though I’m not sure if he reaches the level of “mega supervillain” that we’re supposed to believe in by the end of the movie. I did enjoy how much time is taken to establish why he becomes the person he is though. He has spent years of his life being a financial failure who talks a big game, convincing numerous investors to believe in the dreams he has and the lies he tells. It’s hard to say how things would have turned out if he didn’t have the Dreamstone because he never seemed to have a backup plan. Right from the beginning, he knew of the stone’s existence (not really sure how) and knew it was the key to saving his life and making him the most powerful person on the planet. So, though he garners sympathy with his position in life and his relationship with his son, because he wants to show Alistair that he will be proud to have him as a father, we see how the power consumes him and becomes his focus. At one point, as his business explodes into an overnight success and he has to deal with the chaos stemming from it, he’s told his son Alistair has come for his visit. This prompts him to blurt out “I get Alistair again?!”. You know he loves his son, but he just says this out of stress and anger, further exemplifying how the Dreamstone has affected his life, his career, and his family.

When he sees that his son hears him say this and walks away, he tries to recover by sending him a present, but this is used as an understated pivotal moment to show us how fixated he is on his supervillain path because of his lack of empathy regarding his own son. At first, it was all about showing his son why he is a success, and this is why we feel for him, but it becomes less and less about Alistair and more about him, showing us why he is indeed the villain of the story who needs to learn.

The question arises that if you have the ability to make it happen, “Why not go for more?”. Max Lord becomes the physical representation of this question, and he loses sight on what actually matters in life in pursuit of gaining everything. As likable as he can be, they build him up in such a manner that’s entertaining enough to watch unfold but just bad enough to want Diana to figure out a way to stop him. What makes Pascal’s Max Lord so interesting is that he’s one of the very few comic book villains in film that we don’t necessarily want to see get murdered. This is crazy to say, right? It’s not just because of how likeable Pedro Pascal is either. Something about how Max was portrayed makes us want a reasonable solution. A lesson needed to be taught and maybe an ass-kicking is necessary, but killing the guy would not have felt as satisfying. Despite everything he did, Diana’s handling of the situation in the climax was exactly the conclusion he deserved, though the ultimate message was stupid (more on that later). It felt right, which again, is rare for a comic book villain. It wouldn’t have felt right if Wonder Woman just came into the lair and started cracking skulls. Her trying to reason with both villains was the appropriate response.

Regarding Max’s descent into madness, I loved the additional element of his body falling apart with each passing wish. Max’s desperation as he unravels adds a lot to Pascal’s wild performance. It’s one of those performances that gets better and better with each rewatch. Then again, this also may be because I have become a bigger fan of Pedro Pascal with each passing year. In his defense, he’s nailed every opportunity he’s had so far in mainstream cinema.

On a side note, when he talks to the one preacher about his TV time and says aloud, “I need to find a way to touch a lot of people at the same time”, I did chuckle. There’s a Bill Cosby joke in there somewhere.

Not all films need to have a message, but the characters have to learn something in some way. Superhero films, especially with characters who are as pure as Wonder Woman or even the old Superman, tend to go for a message of some sort like they’re trying to influence the young kids who may be watching. With that being said, the “the truth” being the answer to everything was insultingly corny. For the whole film’s point to be centered on such an unrealistic, unfair, and hokey meaning, the departing message felt cheesy and unfulfilling. It’s like they got the idea straight out of the 1950s or an “after school” TV special. It could have worked if handled carefully, but it didn’t even line up with what was going on. One of the major positives coming out of the modern interpretations of comic book films and properties is the admittance of the grey area and how not all things are as black-and-white as they seem, something Diana learned herself in the first film. For this sequel to revert and choose the corniest, most one-dimensional, TV movie-lesson there is to send everyone home felt cringeworthy in 2020. To further Diana’s plead, she talks about having to accept Steve’s death saying, “I’ve never wanted anything more, but he’s gone and that’s the truth”. Is a statement like this even about telling the truth versus lying? Wishing someone you loved back to life isn’t about lying at all. Her situation with Steve is so much more than that. Calling it “lying” is an oversimplification of things that really isn’t even true. Yes, technically Steve was dead, but she found a loophole to bring him back. I don’t see why she looks at this like it’s the personification of the all-powerful truth. It would make sense if she was a Christian and saw her bringing him back as heresy and an abomination, but she’s a god herself, so this shouldn’t really matter to her.

Plus, it’s not a lie if he was technically back amongst the living. He wasn’t gone anymore. Categorizing his situation as a “lie” is a total misunderstanding of the concept and way too loaded of an example, accompanied by too many grey areas that can be argued either way.

Steve having to die isn’t the message that should push her in the right direction. The world being destroyed should be enough for her to realize we can’t have our cake and eat it too, but roping Steve’s existence into it doesn’t make sense. Also, I still agree with Diana. There had to have been another way to avoid renouncing her wish specifically. There just wasn’t enough to convince me that this was the only option. They say directly that the only way to stop things is “destroying the stone itself OR give back what was given”. Steve says “stopping him might not be enough” just because wishes have already been made, but we just established that it’s either/or. Wouldn’t killing Max do the trick then, instead of going about things the way they do? Wouldn’t that reverse all the wishes anyway? There’s no way 100% of the entire world agreed to renounce their wish at the same time. It had to have been taken from them once Max renounced his, but if so, couldn’t Steve have stayed alive? Diana’s wish happened before Max wished to become the Dreamstone. Wouldn’t this “grandfather” her wish in, so he’s safe, or am I overthinking this? It’s just hard for me to buy Steve having to be the first one to go. Hypothetically, couldn’t she have convinced everyone to renounce their wishes but secretly kept hers? Sure, it may not have been the “superhero” thing to do, but would we have really blamed her? If anything, it would add some depth to her. That scene where she’s arguing with Steve and talks about how selfless she is for everyone and doesn’t ask for a single thing in return finally shows us Diana’s vulnerability, adding loads of much needed depth. We can’t help but feel for this poor girl. This is the most emotion we have ever seen out of her, as we see her say, “I give of myself every day! You are the only one I’ve asked for”. Why, just this one time, can she have this ONE thing?

Man, I felt that in my soul.

Why can’t she just have Steve, especially considering he’s already right here in front of her face? Why does she have to give him up to succeed when the rules of the film established that this wasn’t a 100% certainty and more so conjecture on Steve’s part? We really can’t give her one “W”? The circumstances just didn’t feel dire enough for her to have to renounce her wish and face the two villains alone. In the writers’ defense, this was a big part in having Diana move on and realize the sacrifices she has to make as a hero, as well as become her own woman and star without the crutch of Chris Pine’s Steve. Also, it gave us the touching scene where they kiss, and Steve closes his eyes, with Diana doing the same as she leaves him. Then, she officially renounces the wish and weeps as she walks away, with Steve from a distance telling her how he will always love her. It was an emotional and powerful turning point for the character, though it was almost ruined by the comical run she did almost immediately after.

Even with this being said, it still didn’t feel necessary with how they removed him from the narrative. I can’t say whether keeping him alive to continue on for the next sequel or killing him off so Diana could do things on her own was the right move, but it didn’t feel right as is. By the end of the film, there seemed to be a sizeable hole left from Steve exiting the movie, though the epilogue was sweet. However, for Diana to wrap up her life-changing love as “the truth” and how “the truth is enough. The truth is beautiful” in the climax, I sat there in confusion. Out loud, I looked at the screen and said, “I guess?”. Of all the different philosophical meanings that could be found within this narrative about the meaning of life, death, grief, acceptance, the afterlife, moving on, love, being yourself, or overcoming life’s faults in pursuit of a dream, they instead choose the weakest, most hackneyed message possible to end the film. Had they actually thought about going deeper with developing Diana and what she’s been through in search of something more fruitful and realistic to her situation, they could have been on the cusp of something great, but they chose the cheesiest conclusion possible and a put a damper on everything they were building towards.

Can anyone tell me why everyone’s wish becomes true in the exact way they wanted it, but when Diana wishes for Steve to come back, he has to be brought back in someone else’s body? Also, why did the guy they choose look like he came straight out of a Hallmark film? That guy screamed “TV movie” actor.

On a side note, despite the marketing behind Diana wearing the gold armor of Asteria and how big of a moment it’s supposed to be when she finally dons the outfit going into the climax, it didn’t have nearly the emotional affect that the film seemed to think it had.

Lastly, making this sequel an ode to the 1980s was a fun idea. Continuing on with the theme of inserting Diana in lesser utilized time periods in film, putting Diana in the year of 1984 was a really cool aesthetic choice. Though they didn’t fully use it to the extent they could have (not using 1980s pop music throughout seems like the most obvious of missed opportunities), it was a good choice to keep things fresh. Seeing the fashion, the breakdancing, and a classic 80s movie montage of Steve trying on clothes, we get a decent amount of light-hearted humor in the first half of the movie, especially with Steve’s reactions to everything. Steve yelling at Diana when they steal the plane after hearing about the possibility of them getting shot at was gold (“Well shit Diana!”).

Shout out to DC for being nice enough for letting Lynda Carter cameo. It would have been nice to see her in a third movie in an extended role, but it’s looking like an impossibility now.

Wonder Woman 1984 may not be as well-rounded as Wonder Woman, but it’s still an entertaining enough sequel to make it a worthwhile viewing for fans. Unfortunately, there were just too many frustrating decisions within the screenplay that bog down the final product. Even so, it was good enough to make me want to see Gal Gadot return in a third film. Sadly, James Gunn is working diligently to stop that from happening. This isn’t fair. This sequel does get a bad rep for a lot of reasons, but there were too many positives to stop this franchise completely in its tracks.