Torn between “How to waste a great franchise” and “Yet-another-movie-sequel-gone-wrong”, I walked out feeling disappointed from the one and only (and therefore much awaited) superhero movie of 2020.
But, then what was I expecting? It is (was!) 2020, after all.
It’s not like the rest of the year lived up to our expectations!
Why put this burden of hope from a movie, right?
Wrong!
That’s exactly why!
A superhero movie coming at the end of a year like this carries a huge responsibility, whether the movie likes it or not.
To give us hope of the victory of good over evil. To entertain and make us feel good. To make us believe in the impossible and bedazzle us with the possibilities of human imagination.
Unfortunately, #WonderWoman1984 fails at all of the above.
It fails at giving us a clear narrative of good over evil, because of its convoluted (though well-intentioned) plot of fighting the evil within ourselves, of our own selfish desires. We get the point the film was trying to make in a difficult year like 2020, where we have realised that the real evil in the world IS mankind and it’s insatiable greed. Greed, that has created a dystopian world, including zoonotic disease like COVID-19. But, it is done in a very complex and unconvincing manner that leaves us a bit cold and disconnected. And yes, #WW84 wordplay (wonder woman or 'world war' is not lost on us. Clever, but uninspiring!)
Equally importantly, every superhero film imagines the evil embodied in a villain. For example, Thanos in the Avengers is a great example of the Malthusian correction of human’s ever-expanding and devastating footprint in the world.
But in imagining the evil of human desire in the form of a villain, Maxwell Lord, who grants any wish (but taking something in return), the storyline fails to make an engaging villain and therefore misses an engrossing good-over-evil narrative entirely.
The film also fails at entertaining and leaving us with feel-good moments, that we all desperately needed this year. Apart from the opening flashback sequence of Wonder Woman as a child fighting in the Amazonian competition, we miss the good-old-fashioned superhero ass-kicking action. There is too much talking, un-impressive special effects, not enough dishoom-dishoom, and an attempt at emotional storytelling that falls flat. As a result, we neither see the action we want nor the emotions.
There is a lot of time spent in establishing new characters like Barbara (played by Christen Wiig, seen before in many films including the last Ghostbuster all-women film), Maxwell Lord (of popular TV fame in Game of Thrones and Narcos), and the re-incarnation of Steve Trevor (Wonder Woman’s love, played again by Chris Pine, whom the lockdown clearly has not treated well), all of whom are narrow, superficial, stereotyped, caricaturist and unrelatable, and distract from an already confused and weak story-telling. Gal Gadot still shines and brings the frames alive with her presence (in fact, literally at the end with her new golden armour suit), but is not enough to save the film.
The film also fails at bedazzling us with impossible imagination. There is nothing new here to see. Set in 1984 (what’s with Hollywood’s obsession with the 80s!), we see the sites and sounds of an 80s America, that we’ve seen so many times before that it has lost any kind of nostalgia or flashback value. If we want to see the 80s done well, we have Stranger Things on Netflix, thank you very much. There is nothing new in the stunts or the superpowers from Wonder Woman. In fact, after facing villains of gigantic powers in the first WW movie, and in Justice League, the nemesis here feel so small and petty, that it takes away all joy one feels in a movie like this. The scene where she is being all-heroic catching some petty thieves in a mall, with her lasso and super leaps, just makes us want to cry. Is this what Wonder Woman has come to?
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, Wonder Woman 1984 fails at doing the one thing that it was most applauded for in the first film in 2017. The first real only-woman superhero movie of our generation. The same director Patty Jenkins, had a vision, which made its mark with the previous film. The idea of “Because only a woman can save a world destroyed by man” was both timely and impactful. See my short review at https://books-booze-boxoffice.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-mans-world-has-not-delivered.html But this idea is missing entirely in this sequel, despite the potential with two supposedly strong female characters. Barbara's reason to turn evil is that she wants attention and that too in a high-school sorority way! Depressing!
Alas, it saddens me to say that there was neither enough ‘wonder’ nor enough ‘woman’ in this sequel-gone-wrong that has wasted a great franchise.
If you’re planning to get back to the theatre (again?), I suggest watching Tenet a second time. It’s both essential and much more rewarding!
Happy New Year Everyone. To 2021 and beyond!
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