Right, I figured it was time for a brand new review with new content for a change, so the subject of this post will be the superhero film, Wonder Woman 1984, which was released late last year online and not in the cinemas due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, given the success of the original film, how does the sequel compare? Well, let's find out...
And I will say a bit about the plot below (but not too much!) but I will give the usual...
PLOT SPOILERS MAY BE AHEAD!!! (NOT TOO MANY THOUGH!)
STORY
So, to save a bit of time, I have lifted part of the plot from the WW84 Wikipedia page and put it below:
"In 1984, Diana works at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. while secretly performing heroic deeds as Wonder Woman. New museum employee Barbara Ann Minerva, a shy geologist and cryptozoologist, is barely seen by her co-workers, and comes to envy Diana. Later, the FBI asks the museum to identify stolen antiquities from a robbery that Wonder Woman recently foiled. Barbara and Diana notice one item, later identified as the Dreamstone, contains a Latin inscription claiming to grant the holder one wish.
Barbara wishes to become like Diana, but acquires the same superpowers, while Diana unknowingly wishes for her deceased lover Steve Trevor to be alive, resurrecting him in another man's body; the two are reunited at a Smithsonian gala. Failing businessman Maxwell "Max Lord" Lorenzano tricks Barbara and steals the Dreamstone, hoping to use its power to save his bankrupt oil company. He wishes to "become" the stone and gains its wish-granting powers, becoming a wealthy and powerful figure who creates chaos and destruction as his powers trigger worldwide instability..."
THOUGHTS
As a sequel to the original, Wonder Woman 1984 is an enjoyable follow-up but at the same time it isn't quite as good as the first film because it has to be said its scope is a bit all over the place and the film is also very long at over 2 and a half hours (but I will say more about that in the flaws). Regardless though, it is good to see the return of the super heroine and the film's characters are engaging enough for the most part. The film also has plenty of good humour and continues to act as an antidote to some of the previous dour DC entries we have seen in the past.
PERFORMANCES (No notable scenes this time but still a few spoilers might be mentioned!)
As for the performances, the cast are all excellent here and give solid performances.
Starting with Gal Gadot who is great once again in her dual role as Wonder Woman/Diana Prince, the heroic Amazonian goddess, who by now works at a museum and largely keeps to herself, however on discovering the dream stone, she wishes her former wartime boyfriend, Steve, back to life. Gal also balances both roles very well as she did in the previous film but she also plays Diana as being more mature and guarded and amusingly ends up almost reversing her role with Steve as she shows him around the modern lifestyle of the 1980s. Gal also shows an impressive display of emotion later on in the film but I won't much more than that and it shows how she has come on as an actress.
Chris Pine once again does a fine job as Steve Trevor, Diana's former lover, who died in the first film back in World War I but is brought back to life by the dreamstone (albeit in another man's body!). Chris also provides some good moments of humour in the film, especially in the scene where he tries on various cheesy 80's outfits and also later reacts to how different live in the 80s is (or was!).
Kristen Wig also does very well in her role as Barbara Minerva, who is a shy geologist and works with Dana at the museum but later makes a wish to the dream stone that she become like Diana that transforms her and gives her superpowers. Barbara of course later on goes onto become the villainous, Cheetah, an apex predator.
Pedro Pascal is excellent also in his role as Maxwell "Max Lord" Lorenzano, a charismatic businessman, who is well known for appearing various TV commercials but we soon discover he is actually struggling financially. Max later on wishes to become the dream stone itself and ends up making everyone else's wish come true but at quite a drastic cost.
And the last two cast members I will mention are Robin Wright, who reprises her role as Antiope, a general of the Amazon army and aunt to Diana, although Robin's appearance is restricted purely to the opening sequence of the film set years ago when a young Diana enters an athletic event. And Robin does a pretty good overall with the little material that she has been given here.
And lastly there is Connie Nielsen, who also reprises her role as Queen Hippolyta, the ruler of Themyscira and Diana's mother. Again, Connie does a fine job here but her role is pretty small and confined to the intro sequence of the film where the young Diana participates in an athletic event.
DIRECTOR
Moving onto the director, Patty Jenkins, returns to direct the sequel and overall she does a pretty good job at balancing the action, drama and comedy. However, it does have to be said that the film does feel a bit overlong and the pacing definitely has its problems, which Jenkins could have fixed by trimming the film's run time. Despite that though, Jenkins still provides a solid directorial effort here.
MUSIC
As for the music, we have the great Hans Zimmer provide the score and its a pretty good one overall although I have to say I didn't find it to be one of his more memorable ones. That aside, Zimmer provides a score that is very appropriate to the tone of the film and its good to see that he is still working within the superhero genre of film scores (despite years ago insisting that he quit doing it!).
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain the odd spoiler!)
As for flaws...yeah Wonder Woman 1984 isn't perfect.
For starters, I think the film as I mentioned, is just a bit too long with a run time of 2 hours and 31 minutes and the pacing let's it down in places. This is particularly the case in the opening sequence with the athletic contest involving the young Diana, it just drags on too long and it gets a bit boring and it feels like an unnecessary bit of preamble to the modern day setting of the film.
The film also meanders quite a bit in terms of the whole idea of getting to the point where Max finally gets his hands on the dream stone and gets to make his wish to become it himself. I mean the whole bit with Max and his financial struggles, chat with his investor and then pretending he is a big shot businessman to everyone just drags on too making it a bit of a tiresome subplot.
And then there is the return of Steve Trevor, Diana's deceased lover, who appears in the body of another man after Diana wishes that he would return and the dream stone brings him back to life but I just felt in a way, Steve's appearance in the film feels a bit unnecessary. He does of course provide a bit of amusing comic relief as he dresses up in a bunch of goofy, cheesy 80's outfits but I almost felt like they brought him back just for the sake of shoehorning him into the film. However, by the end of the film, it does suggest that Chris Pine might not return for a third film in future but we'll see.
I also felt the film was lacking in action scenes at times also given the film's extensive run time, there are too many talky scenes and not enough action to engage the viewer. The action scenes themselves are quite decent but nothing amazing but its just a shame there weren't more of them for the viewers to get into.
WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD!
I also thought they left Barbara's story line unfinished as near the end, she becomes Cheetah and ends up fighting Wonder Woman but in the end, WW manages to defeat her and after Wonder Woman convinces Max to renounce his wish, she averts to normal and that's it! So, we don't get to see what happened to Barbara afterward and her story line is basically over at this point, which is a bit daft but maybe if they do a director's cut in future, we will get a proper closure for her character.
And last of all, just how the hell did Wonder Woman get that golden suit she has near the end of the film?! I mean, it just appears out of nowhere that she puts on the outfit for the final battle but unless I missed something, I don't know where she found it! Perhaps she had lying around and decided to save it for the right occasion and maybe the showdown was that right one. It just seems weird anyway that she suddenly turned up wearing it.
Anyways, that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So to sum up, Wonder Woman 1984 is an enjoyable sequel to the original film and has some fun moments, decent action scenes and features fine performances from its cast with Gal Gadot making another solid return to the main role. The film however does have some problems as it is overlong and suffers from a lack of action scenes and has quite a lot of talky scenes instead as well as ones that feel padded out.
However, if you can overlook all that, then Wonder Woman 1984 is still worth a look even if it isn't as good as the original.
So, I will give WW84 a rating of:
6.5 out of 10
So, that's it for now and I will return sometime soon with another post.
Till then, bye for now!
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