Wonder Woman 1984
Woof. I don't know how Patty Jenkins made a movie as good as Wonder Woman then made a movie as bad as its sequel. Granted, this is not the first time this has happened though I find it odd that this seems to happen with superhero movies a lot.
UNMARKED SPOILERS BELOW
(To be honest, I don't think this movie is good enough to justify the time needed to individually mark spoilers or really, the length of this post, but I had a lot of feelingz)
Let's start here: It's ridiculous that Diana isn't over a man she knew for what, a few weeks, a month 66 years ago. That implies she has had no personal growth in nearly seven decades. She has pictures and mementos of Steve Trevor all over her condo. What was she doing with all that time? I don't hate the choice to bring back Steve (Gal Gadot and Chris Pine have good chemistry). However, there had to be a better way to do so without making Diana seems so needy.
Then, there's the weird moral quandary of Steve's soul/consciousness being magically placed in some random man's body instead of simply appearing as himself. Diana and Steve definitely ****, meaning both of them just used this hapless dude's body yet neither of them act like that's completely reprehensible. Then, that man shows up at the end none the wiser so I presume he was not aware for any of that (except he probably was). WHAT WAS GAINED FROM THIS? Just bring back Steve in his own pre-blown up body and have him disappear when Diana renounces her wish. After speaking to a friend, I am not the first person to think the Steve-Not-Steve thing was bizarre. This begs the question of how this made it into the final cut. Wonder Woman 1984 was delayed eleventy-billion times. No one in like two years thought it might be a good idea to cut/reshoot that part?
Anyway, many of the issues in this movie stem from the Dreamstone as its rules were particularly unclear. Explaining the MacGuffin using a well-known work of fiction (i.e. W. W. Jacobs "The Monkey's Paw) isn't necessarily a bad strategy. However, once you make that connection for the audience, it becomes extremely difficult to walk it back. The Monkey’s Paw is an extremely easy concept to grasp. However in Wonder Woman 1984, Dolos is mentioned then never introduced and subsequently ignored for the rest of the movie. Are we supposed to care about that? As for the wishes themselves, sometimes a person gets exactly what they want, sometimes they mostly get what they want. Sometimes the ironic twist is instantaneous, sometimes it's a slow burn. Perhaps more cumbersome is that the text supports the notion that everyone remembers that weird day when everyone's wish was granted yet no one is freaking the **** out, particularly Not-Steve at the end who should know who Wonder Woman is. Collectively, the movie does a poor job of establishing the rules of the world its presenting.
Additionally, I wasn't entirely sold on why this movie absolutely had to be set in 1984. I get that Maxwell Lorenzano/Max Lord was cosplaying as Gordon Gekko, the poster boy for 80s greed. The problem here is Gordon Gekko is a **** through and through while Max Lord is not (more on that later). I suppose 1984 was only five short years removed from the 1979 oil crisis yet also around the 1980s oil surplus. The movie also touched on but pre-dates the Cold War of the 1980s. One thing I learned in a screenwriting class back in college is if you're going to write a period piece, it has to be essential to the story you're telling. For example, X-Men: First Class very critically uses the Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, the antagonist and one of the protagonists are intimately tied to World War II so the timing works. Those are big reasons to set the events in 1962.
In Wonder Woman 1984, there are mostly superficial references to the 1980s such as the mall set piece at the beginning that seemed like a wink-and-a-nod to 1980s comedies (and aggressive use of literal winking at the camera). Tonally, it did not fit well with the rest of the film. Personally, I feel like this was a missed opportunity. If Warner Bros./Patty Jenkins really wanted to make a period piece, here's an idea: make a $200 million, two hour and 30 minute version of the 1970s TV show.
As it stands, Wonder Woman 1984 does not use its runtime well. It's somehow too long and not long enough. Jenkins seemingly wanted to do a lot with all these different moving parts and accomplished almost none of it. The opening scene is there to show how and why Diana understands the importance of telling the truth. 11 minutes were spent on what could have been a 30 second scene or you know, not in the movie at all because we don't need that lesson. As a moral figure, we expect that from Wonder Woman. This is the same kind of heavy-handed storytelling from the original (i.e. love > war). I didn't even dislike the scene itself (other than not believing Lilly Aspell could outperform all of the other Amazons). However, it was an easy scene to cut with its runtime better used elsewhere such as...
I didn't care about Max Lord and his relationship with his son because roughly 37 seconds was spent on that yet it became the catalyst for Max's change of heart at the end. In fact, I didn't really care about Max Lord's character. He's all over the place so it was difficult for me to feel anything for him. Max is the main antagonist yet the movie never commits to him being a villain. He's clearly meant to be sympathetic except we're not given key information until his flashback montage in the third act. For that reason, I wasn't able to relate to him. Marvel, for example, has tried this a few times, and has been far more successful at least partially because they didn't try to squeeze in a redemption arc in a limited amount of time. It takes Loki two whole movies and one scene in a third to earn his redemption. Zemo and Killmonger don't get a redemption arc (yet?). They live and die by their actions. In Wonder Woman 1984, Max Lord almost destroys the world yet faces no consequences. He just fucking walks out of that building the randomly finds his son wandering out of the forest. What in the worl..........
Additionally, I didn't care about Max Dillon/Electro Barbara Minerva/Cheetah because her screentime was so poorly utilized. It felt like Kristen Wiig was in this movie for like 10 minutes. Why am I supposed to care about her? She dropped some papers, people don't remember her name/appreciate her intelligence, then she has her did-we-just-become-best-friends lunch date with Diana. That scene cuts to Diana laughing and telling Barbara how funny she is. "No one's made me laugh like that in such a long time." Well, what did Barbara say that was so funny? Y'all cast one of the funniest comedians in the world and don't let her be funny? We're just told she's funny. Woof.
Later, Barbara beats up that creeper who previously harassed and assaulted her because he was harassing her again. To be honest, I was still on Team Barbara. She shouldn't be beating up people, but we're conditioned to take Barbara's side. Right? Barbara hasn't done anything terrible yet, and the guy has now street harassed her twice implying that his earlier behavior wasn't isolated. The scene plays out more like a bad person getting their comeuppance than Barbara losing a part of herself due to the ironic nature of her wish. The movie didn't commit to Barbara's heel turn when it needed to. The audience doesn't find out until later that Barbara's wish traded her warmth as a person for power and beauty. Okay. It's-not-their-fault® except that's both antagonists in this movie. Why? It's okay to have an irredeemable villain.
And it was hella weird that Barbara just walks into the White House and has a big fight with Diana. That action set piece felt off. There are multiple shots of White House security just not firing their guns at people who trespassed on White House grounds. Then, Diana drops an exposition bomb on Barbara who quickly turns it around on Diana. It's frustrating that Diana somehow didn't realize that she had to give up Steve-Not-Steve to get her powers back before being told. At least she learned to fly (though the flying and whip swinging parts looked off to me).
I'm not sure what Barbara gained by using her freebie wish from Max to be “an apex predator”. She already had Diana's powers and literally just bested her in combat. On top of that, the makeup and CGI were not great. This movie was such a flustercuck that I'm 97% sure there's a version of Cheetah with a CGI butthole. #ReleaseTheButtholeCut
Wonder Woman 1984 violates so many basic rules of filmmaking and storytelling from people who should and do know better. I want to blame Warner Bros. for meddling because that's on brand for the company and a lot of these things don't seem like mistakes a seasoned director like Jenkins would make.