‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Dreams Big, But Wishes It’s Something It's Not: Compelling [Review]

This review may contain some minor spoilers for “Wonder Woman 1984,” but it’s hard to discuss the movie without discussing the plot’s very basic elements.

In “Wonder Woman 1984,” everyone is wishing for something they cannot have. Diana Prince, aka, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), is pining for the halcyon days of her youth in Themyscira, and the deceased love of her life Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). Infomercial entrepreneur Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) hopes for wealth, power, and most importantly, respect, and the always overlooked Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) dreams of not being utterly invisible to the entire world. None of the wishes are attainable, but thanks to a wishing dreamstone that conveniently falls into the lap of the plot, “Wonder Woman 1984” presupposes maybe they are?

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If that sounds rather pedestrian, simplistic, and inane as a crucial plot point that decides the fate of the entire movie —a stone that grants wishes and falls into the wrong hands— well, welcome to “Wonder Woman 1984,” a movie that is fundamentally ill-conceived, poorly written, and missing most of the basic charms that made the original “Wonder Woman” such a delight (minus the last act). Directed again by Patty Jenkins, the film is also something of a nonsensical mess narratively, even by the most lenient and forgiving standards of superhero movies where fantastical, impossible things routinely occur. Suspension of disbelief is crucial to this genre, but ‘WW84’ is constantly breaking or conveniently upgrading its rules in ways that definitely break or at least always test your suspension of disbelief. It’s also stylish, but empty, vapid even, and chock-a-block with strange logic gaps.

Yet, it doesn’t start that way. ‘WW84’ begins in a rousing flashback to Diana’s youth, a contest of skill that she naturally thrives at, built around the idea of tough lessons that she’ll understand later in life. This opening scene is everything you want from a “Wonder Woman” film and harkens back to the original; it’s thrilling, it soars, it gives you all the awe-inspiring feels, and makes the viewer realize Richard Donner and his original “Superman” movie is going to be the touchstone point here. Good, great, no problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ film’s reach exceeds its grasp by several rungs on an Amazonian playground.

Fast-forwarding to the present day, it’s 1984, the me-generation age of greed and selfishness, which seems like the perfect era to introduce a manipulative Ponzi-scheme conman like Maxwell Lord, but never resonates as it should (especially given all the Trump-like possibilities it seems to fail to connect). The plot is eventually convoluted and belabored, but revolves around; initially, Lord getting his hands on the dreamstone at the Smithsonian in Washington—where anthropologist Diana Prince and her new co-worker, scientist Dr. Barbara Minerva, a multiple Ph.D. and specialist in gemology, both work. Soon, thanks to his greasy charms, the stone falls into Lord’s hands, and he does….multiple things with it, many of which seem rather silly and unbelievable, again, even by the standards of inherently-implausible superhero films. The film begins to unravel from there quickly.

“Think about having everything you’ve always wanted!” Lord teases seductively in a cheesy commercial early in the film, foreshadowing the notion of a con man selling false promises. And so, the wishing stone is supposed to have one basic rule: it can grant one wish. Somehow, the stone manages to grant Minerva two wishes on what is essentially a fantastical plot technicality. Then, it’s revealed later on—after Lord has seemingly bent the stone’s rules with a supplementary new caveat—that wishes also have consequences and the ability to take something from you in return. Gee, it would’ve been nice to know that earlier on in the film, when the basic rules were being explained rather than being totally confused about how Lord has “extra” powers, yet it’s solved, as a guess, by Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor. That’s kind of how ‘WW84,’ goes for much of the film, confusion about what the limits and powers of this stone are and what it can do, which often leaves the viewer baffled.

Oh yes, we haven’t gotten to that. Steve Trevor died in “Wonder Woman,” but yes, he’s back! How is rather obvious given the plot device, but the manner in which he comes back (which we won’t spoil here), is silly and ridiculous. And that’s ‘WW84’ in a nutshell, one mildly farfetched (even for superhero films) contrivance after another that you can overlook, until it happens to many times, you cannot overlook them at all and are completely exasperated by how much this ludicrous plot asks of its audience. (Yes, “Aquaman” was goofy too, but even that film wasn’t this narratively silly.)

Nothing seems to make sense in the sloppy ‘WW84,’ and all of it hurts the movie’s overall coherence, of which there is little. Diana seems to lose her lasso of truth in one would-be moment, only to have it attached to her hip again like nothing happened in the next scene. And look, pedantic nitpicking in a film is the worst kind of review genre, but ‘WW84’ is so glaring about what feels like basic continuity errors, it practically invites your scrutiny. One scene, makes a point about describing a device (which we won’t spoil here) as big, bulky, taking up a lot of space. Fine, got it. And yet, 60 minutes later, that device magically appears out of nowhere when Diana is halfway across the globe—huh?? Then she suddenly learns two new powers she’s never had before, and it just sort of feels like the writers are just throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks.

Regardless, fix all the janky ends, make it more realistic, what have you, and ‘WW84’ is a pale shadow of its former self with little of the dynamic energy or charismatic verve. Most of the joys and delights are gone or pivoted to half-funny ‘80s jokes about parachute pants. The humor never lands in the same way (it’s a real shame Diane’s naïveté of the world is gone), the chemistry that Pine and Gadot had in the first film doesn’t radiate in the same way, and the film just does not remotely possess the same spark. Running for an interminable two-and-a-half-hours (that feels longer), ‘WW84’ dreams big, but wishes it were something it’s not, and that is compelling and entertaining.

Donner is that goal. His “Superman” films are such a benchmark in aspirational tone; one assumes that’s why writers Jenkins, Geoff Johns, and David Callaham, chose such a strangely antiquated plot device seemingly lifted straight out of a more guileless 1978 (either that or the billion-dollar success of “Aquaman”). But even aspirational turns into corny, cheesy or clumsy in the hands of this filmmaker.

Gal Gadot remains a terrific Wonder Woman, and Chris Pine is obviously a scene-stealer when given the right material. Still, this story, script, and movie do a complete disservice to the ‘Wonder Woman’ franchise. The film tries to say something about nobility and renouncing your greatest wishes in the name of the greater good, but honestly, by then, you could really care less. Things, unfortunately, get even worse, more incomprehensible, and preposterous in the last act, so there’s little point in explaining it all (the less said about CGI Cheetah, the better, but she’s mercifully brief).

“Wonder Woman 1984” is more than just mere disappointment or let down from the last film; it’s just misguided from the start of its dreamstone plot, which is such a shame. For all its hopes and dreams, ‘WW84’ has much ambition, but fails to attain the engaging and inspirational greatness it seeks. [D+]

“Wonder Woman 1984” will arrive in theaters and on HBO Max on December 25. Here’s the opening scene