THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Wonder Woman was a highlight of the 2010s for the superhero genre due to setting the best example of female empowerment. Due to its box office success at the time, a sequel was bound to happen. The sequel Wonder Woman 1984 came out in Christmas of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing that not every theater was open, a sacrifice was made that it would also stream on (HBO)Max for a month during its theatric run. I made the decision to go to a drive in and it was worth it in the long run.
PLOT
The sequel takes place in the said year and follows Amazon Diana Prince (Princess of Themyscira) acting as a vigilante in Washington, DC. At this point in her life, she works at the Smithsonian Institution. There, she befriends fellow employee Barbara Minerva, a geologist and zoologist. On her first day, she is asked by the FBI to identify stolen antiques from a robbery Diana foiled. Both women take notice of one artifact that is supposably the Dreamstone, one that can grant wishes to whoever holds it. It is proven real when another employee wishes for coffee, only to get one short after but no one takes it serious. Barbara and Diana would separately make their own wishes without accepting that it will come true. For Barbara, she wishes to be like Diana. The following morning, it becomes a reality when she seems more agile, stronger and has everyone’s attention due to her beauty. She also gets particular attention from failing businessman Maxwell Lorenzano aka Max Lord. He seduces her at a gala, only to take the stone from her. He takes it because he has been looking for it for a long time. His wish is to become the stone itself. During the same gala, Diana discovers that her wish came true as well. Hers was for her deceased lover Steve Trevor to be alive. His conscience is alive in the body of another man. By morning, she plans to investigate the stone’s origin. She visits Barbara and asks for it, only for her to share that she ‘lent’ it to Lord. She than goes to his office of Black Gold Cooperative, discovering that he is heading to Cairo. Lord has been using his power at his advantage, granting wishes to those he wants to overpower. When Simon Stagg (Oliver Cotton) wishes for him to achieve success, he loses his shares and control of Black Gold. At Cairo, leader Emir Said bin Abydos (Amr Wakes) wishes for a wall which leads to losing his entire security team. When Diana & Steve make their way to stop him, the Amazon confronts him to ask for the stone. Max admits that he is the stone but after this, she gets grazed and bleeds for the first time. Thanks to research from Barbara, they go meet Babajide (Frank Patel), someone who knows the origin of stone. With his knowledge, he shares that the stone was made by Dolos, the Duke of Deception. A toll is exacting after each granted wish, unless renounced. Many ancient civilizations crashed catastrophically because of it. Since Diana & Barbara don’t want to renounce their wishes, they hope to find another way. Max’s health is declining and must now make consistent wishes to keep himself alive. He goes to the White House to meet the United States President, convincing him to let him use his satellite to make wishes globally, after he wishes to have more nuclear weapons than the Russians. Diana & Steve make their way there when they discover where he is. Upon arrival, they confront him in hopes to convince him to renounce his wish. Barbara appears as well to protect Max and keep her wish. As Diana gets weaker from her wish, she realizes that Barbara lost her humanity from her own. Steve convinces Diana to renounce her wish so she can regain her full strength and stop Max. At the satellite headquarters, Max convinces everyone around the world to make their wishes, which causes instability around the globe. When Diana regains her strength, she dons the armor of the ancient Amazon Astoria and flies her way to the headquarters. Before reaching Max, she fights Barbara who has gained an feline like appearance after being granted a second wish to be an apex predator. She is able to subdue her by electrocuting her, which surprisingly does not kill her. She uses the Lasso of Truth to talk to the world via Max, convincing all to renounce their wishes. Max finally renounces his own when he senses his son Alistair (Lucian Perez) to be in danger. This prevents a nuclear war between Russia and the US. When he finds him, he apologizes him for being neglectful. But the boy cheers him up by saying he’ll always love him no matter what. The film forwards to the holiday where Diana briefly encounters the man whose body was hosted by Steve. When he walks away, she looks in the air and accepts that she did the right thing to let go of the man she loved. As she continues to be a protector, the film ends with a post credit scene of Astoria casually saving someone’s life.
THOUGHTS
I could’ve watched this on (HBO)Max as I would for later films, but I missed being outside for so long that I refused to stay inside any longer when I heard a local drive in was open. When I got the chance to see this in early 2021, I’m honest when I say this is a good sequel. This one is far from better from what we got the first time around, but that doesn’t make it terrible. Aside from exciting action sequences, Hans Zimmer’s beautiful score and beautiful visual moments like the Invisible Jet, this one is memorable because director & writer Patty Jenkins gives us new lessons to learn: Losing is uncomfortable but never something to be ashamed of, because it actually makes one stronger. Gal Gadot returns as the strong willed protagonist we know her to be. She is explained the lesson by her family but doesn’t fully understand the stakes are high. The decisions she made in her youth set up what she goes through at this film’s time period. And the decisions she’d make would make her stronger, whether or not she likes the outcome. We relate to her here because we understand that losing someone is difficult. Her wish made her the most vulnerable she could ever be, until she accepted reality. It was her last adventure with Steve that helped her accept that what she wanted doesn’t outweigh the needs. She was smart to walk away as she renounced her wish because she couldn’t bear seeing him go. When she looked at the balloon go in the sky, that was the final straw that made her mind clear, hence becoming a hero that would be much less hesitant with decisions that have to be made. When I think about franchise continuity, I appreciate the picture montage in her apartment which acknowledges how she kept in touch with Steve’s friends including Etta James, until each would die of elderly age. Speaking of Steve Trevor, When I heard Chris Pine would return, I was confused on how it’d be so. Nevertheless, it was a welcome return to witness. Seeing his arc play out was very interesting. It starts out hilarious as he adapts to a new world, but doesn’t change who he is. Even in a new body, he is still capable of defending himself. I wouldn’t call him more heroic than Steve, but he was smart enough to convince her to let him go because he knew he was holding her back. Again, it is a tough moment for history to repeat itself but you can’t help admiring his selflessness. Going into the new characters, I wasn’t sure what I wanted when it came to casting Kristen Wiig as Cheetah because I never expected her to join the superhero genre. Overall, she was incredible when going from kind & awkward to selfish & animalistic. Since she survived her battle against Diana, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were to return a follow up. My favorite performance is gonna go to Pedro Pascal, who was amazing as Max Lord. At first, you fall for this guy when he displays his charm through his advertising. But when he’s off those screens, we see that his ambitions made him greedy, despite good intentions. When we briefly see him come from a troubled childhood, we understand that he never wanted to lose control the way he did. He loved his son more than his dad could ever love him and when he renounced his wish, it was truly the first time he put himself aside. His motto, “Life is good, but it can be better”, is catchy to hear yet has a deep meaning that I find the second lesson to be taught: Life sucks, but we should be grateful with what we already have. Last but not least, we all know that Wonder Woman would’ve not been popular as she is now without the first live action performance by the legend Lynda Carter in the 1970s television series. Having her appear as Asteria during the post credit scene is a nod to her for telling the world that women would’ve not gained recognition of being bad asses onscreen without her. When she gave that smile, you feel that same scene bright energy she gave back than. I give this more credit than it deserves, but there are things where I understand why people don’t love it. First off, I gotta admit that I was a little confused about the Amazon Olympiad in the opening. Like Diana wasn’t allowed to cheat, yet others before her actually did. I actually one push another way before Diana does what she does, so what gives? It’s clear that Antiope (Robin Wright) didn’t see it but still is a little hard to accept the learning lesson when noticing that. Continuity errors are such a gripe for me and it continues when the arcade Operation Wolf. My problem with that game is that it came out in ‘87, not ‘84. I mean come on guys, be honest with the times. If you want to know when a bank robber is dumb, it’s the fact the ones in the jewel heist go in without masks. They didn’t mess with the cameras, that was Diana’s doing. So those guys were dumb the moment they decided to walk in that mall. I also got to admit that Barbara’s introduction was done in an over the top fashion. I know it’s part of her character to be awkward, but you’re beating on a dead horse when her boss doesn’t recognize her when she’s been working at the Smithsonian for a week and has multiple interviews beforehand. I even thought of it to be weird when Diana got too much sexual attention by other men before reuniting with Steve. I know that’s part of the build up, but they could’ve went straight to it and skip where she’s looked at as an object. The news was pretty spot on when saying the wall was done by Abydos. But how the hell did they know that? He may have made a wish, but he doesn’t have the actual power like Lord to do it. What proof did they have on the guy? That moment was weird for me to digest. Also, how long did it take for Steve and Diana to fly from Cairo to DC? If there was a time jump, I’d like to know. It does sound funny at first when a man asks for a farm and gets two cows outside, but I don’t think it counts if it’s two cows. I know we need Cheetah to keep Max safe for the moment, but how did she know that either he or Diana would be there? If we’re gonna see Diana figure out where he’d be, it’d be fair to know how her secondary adversary would do the same. And how did Diana find the headquarters? Yeah she may have heard Max, but that doesn’t mean she knows the spot. You were doing well showing us how she found him in DC, but than you mess up here. Ignore this, than you’ll still be having a good time. To wrap up, WW84 is still a good sequel for teaching us more lessons than we learned from the predecessor. If you have deep love for the first time, I assure you that you won’t be disappointed with this one.
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