Wonder Woman 1984
Directed by: Patty Jenkins
Written by: Patty Jenkins & Geoff Johns & Dave Callaham
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig, Lucien Perez, Amr Waked, Lilly Aspell, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Natasha Rothwell, Oliver Cotten, Gabriella Wilde, Stuart Milligan, Shane Attwooll
Action/Adventure/Fantasy - 151 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 22 Dec 2020
Written by: Patty Jenkins & Geoff Johns & Dave Callaham
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig, Lucien Perez, Amr Waked, Lilly Aspell, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Natasha Rothwell, Oliver Cotten, Gabriella Wilde, Stuart Milligan, Shane Attwooll
Action/Adventure/Fantasy - 151 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 22 Dec 2020
I texted my gut reaction to Wonder Woman 1984 to some friends and one of them asked why it was set in 1984. Fair question. Apparently, the answer is the opportunity to mock ‘80s fashion and fanny packs. There is nothing sacrilegious about checking in on Diana Prince between when she popped up in World War II in the franchise's first film and when she hooked up with the Justice League later on. The ‘80s only had Christopher Reeves as Superman, Michael Keaton as Batman toward the end, and…Marty McFly? A tip of the hat to DC Films for trying to give that decade some retroactive superhero love. A wag of the finger, however, for hitching the plot to The Monkey’s Paw short story and jaw-dropping, incomprehensible villains.
I first learned of The Monkey’s Paw from HBO’s Tales from the Crypt back in the ‘90s, but versions of it have been around since it was first published in 1902. The moral of the story is “be careful what you wish for.” Fine. But what an odd choice to attach the story to a tentpole action franchise. Writers Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, and Dave Callaham replace the paw with an ancient rock/crystal paperweight-looking thing and for reasons never explained, our eventual bad guy knows all about it. Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal, The Great Wall) is a corporate huckster we’ve seen a thousand times before. His oil claims produce no oil, his business is a Ponzi scheme, and creditors want their money. The only way out he can see is to coincidentally get his hands on a wishing stone to make all his problems go away.
I first learned of The Monkey’s Paw from HBO’s Tales from the Crypt back in the ‘90s, but versions of it have been around since it was first published in 1902. The moral of the story is “be careful what you wish for.” Fine. But what an odd choice to attach the story to a tentpole action franchise. Writers Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, and Dave Callaham replace the paw with an ancient rock/crystal paperweight-looking thing and for reasons never explained, our eventual bad guy knows all about it. Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal, The Great Wall) is a corporate huckster we’ve seen a thousand times before. His oil claims produce no oil, his business is a Ponzi scheme, and creditors want their money. The only way out he can see is to coincidentally get his hands on a wishing stone to make all his problems go away.
Yet, ol’ Maxwell is a pretty rotten individual. He wants power…all the power. Not only does he inexplicably know all about the wishing stone, he believes he figured out a way to game the system. In the process, he turns the Cold War hot and even more egregious, makes Washington D.C. traffic even worse than it already is. For shame. Luckily, Diane Prince aka Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman) lives in D.C. She even lives in the Watergate - ooh la la. Diana is lonely. She’s always where she needs to be - in a mall when cartoon goons decide their best way out is to dangle a little girl over the third floor railing or saving a jogger from a reckless driver and his Trans Am. Even though she experienced the last 65 years, this is not her time. She’s uncomfortable.
Therefore, when Diana touches the wishing stone and unknowingly wishes for a Lazarus-style resurrection, a blast from the past shows up to cure her ennui. Ah, but you know the Monkey’s Paw - nothing ever turns out how you think. In exchange for rekindled romance, Diana’s powers begin to fade, even though she’s going to sorely need them to confront Maxwell Lord who begins to cackle more and more like one of those old school baddies who always guffaws at the mere thought of his plans. Caught up in the swirl is another lonely girl, Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), the Smithsonian’s resident gemologist. Barbara wishes for what every other little girl wishes; she wants to be Wonder Woman.
Wiig follows in the muddy footprints of Jim Carrey’s Edward Nygma aka The Riddler and Jamie Foxx’s Max Dillon aka Electro. These were nobodies who became somebody, losing themselves in the process. This gimmick has yet to spew forth a complex, three-dimensional character worthy of their screen time. At a glacial two-and-a-half hours, director Patty Jenkins had ample time to round out Barbara Minerva, give Maxwell Lord a shred of believability, or really explore Diana’s gut-wrenching decisions of responsibility to the world versus personal gain. Jenkins falls short on all counts. Instead, we get a reversal from the first film where instead of Chris Pine’s (Star Trek Beyond) Steve Trevor introducing Diana to the world; now, it’s Diana showing Steve ‘80s street fashion and escalators 101.
Rather than looking into Steve’s version of life after death, he falls into sidekick mode and can only focus on aircraft. In the war, Steve flew propellor planes with yoke and rudder. Now, without even knowing what a jet engine is called or is capable of, he jumps into a fighter and zooms into the clouds all by the seat of his pants. Then, to make the movie unnecessarily longer, our duo zoom all the way to Cairo on a single tank of gas to action scene themselves on a truck convoy which is all meaningless. Perhaps a film titled Wonder Woman 1984 could never succeed; we’ve seen Diana in multiple movies after this. There are no real stakes. We already know she gets through the year, the rest of the ‘80s, and into present day. So, why ball-and-chain the plot around one of the world’s most famous short stories and crowd the screen with ludicrous caricatures as the antagonists? The first film was strong enough to earn a sequel, but this addition is stock. It’s the Campbell’s Soup version of superhero entertainment. It’s a product, but it’s as low grade and generic as you can get.
Comment Box is loading comments...
