REVIEW: Wonder Woman 1984

Wonder Woman, the superhero we need this year, hits HBO Max and theaters today with the hotly anticipated sequel Wonder Woman 1984. Wonder Woman (2017) was itself a bold statement about representation. By the end of the film there's no doubt about what sermon Patty Jenkins (director) wanted to deliver with Diana Prince's second round, and it is a stirring thing to say . . . though I'd be dishonest to not admit the film does take a few shortcuts to get there.

After her peace quest from the first film, Diana has spent the last sixty years sanctifying her life as a mission of love for humanity, and her missions, as far as we can tell, have been largely absent of vengeful gods or alien warlords. She mostly spends her intervening days yearning for the love she had with Steve Trevor, her lover who met a fiery end in the first movie. The plot is set in motion when a mundane artifact with enigmatic origins is dropped into the hands of the Smithsonian. "I wouldn't value it at more than $75," says anthropologist Barbara Minerva. Yet this deceptively powerful genie's lamp brings Steve back to her through means she cannot explain. But that's only a sampling of the stone's power. As the mysterious artifact passes hands among other pining souls, it thrusts the world toward total desolation that can only be reversed by a superhero who's willing to lose everything.

Though the first half of the runtime keeps the tension mostly domestic, the stakes go from zero to sixty in almost no time. (Don't worry, it surprisingly works.) In this sequel, we shift from the ruthlessness of WWI to the materialism of the 1980s. And it is this bottomless greed, not the fiery hate of a world at war, that this Wonder Woman film indicts as the base of humanity's worst impulses. The juxtaposition may feel a little unbalanced at first, but the film insists that indulgence and hunger can take more forms than marshmallow sleeves and tie-dye t-shirts, and the consequences can be cataclysmic. Even Diana herself possesses some of this greed, and learning to shed her displaced selfishness may make all the difference in whether she can save the day this time.

It is a little hard to accept the "wishing stone" that sets the plot in motion as it feels more like something out of a Care Bears movie. And the characters sometimes recite their motivations a little more explicitly than feels organic. Even Steve Trevor's initial resurrection felt surprisingly unceremonious. Just so, about halfway through you'll understand what the movie was trying to be all along. From there most of the film's narrative shortcuts amount to little more than white noise.

The villainous agenda that stirs Wonder Woman to action is more disguised in this film than the standard superhero flick, divided between Kristen Wiig's Barbara Minerva (alt. ego "Cheetah") and Pedro Pascal's Max Lord. Minerva is the Betty Lou from high school who never grew into herself and Lord is the failed businessman and father. Are Minerva and Lord true supervillains or not? I look forward to reading the inevitable thought pieces.

Both Pascal and Wiig pull their weight as the film's thematic and dramatic tensions reach their boiling point, with Wiig in particular emerging as the most powerful performer in the film. If WW84's villain gamble pays off, it pays off largely because Wiig knows what it looks like when recognizable working-class frustration mutates into superhero scale rage. She never loses sight of Barbara's humanity while knowing better than to infantilize her with unnecessary tragedy.

Returning cast members Gal Gadot and Chris Pine are striking as ever. Both are electric on their own and entirely at home with one another. Pine's Trevor is entirely believable as the wholesome leading man entirely deserving of someone like Diana. At one point his character insists there are hundreds of guys out there far better than him and I'm calling his bluff now. Gadot meanwhile reconciles a million different contradictions in her character and only makes it look natural. She's elegant yet human, powerful yet vulnerable. She's Wonder Woman.

By the time the credits roll (longtime fans of the Wonder Woman icon will want to linger through these a little) it's easy to identify exactly what plot-points the film's story was built around, but the film's return on demand favors the viewer. I can off the top of my head identify at least two spectacular sequences that I wished I could have seen in theaters, spectacular for their masterful visuals and their cathartic rainstorms. Maybe Jenkin's third outing with Diana will deploy a more even hand from start to close, but this film as is reminds us that the best superhero films are powerful, and not just for their visual effects.

--The Professor

Comments

Thawing Disney's Frozen Heart

As a millennial Disney fan and film student in utero, I often thought about what it would have been like to be there when Aladdin or The Little Mermaid , or even “Snow White” or The Jungle Book , premiered to the culture. It’s one thing to grow up and realize you have a piece of film history with you here in your living room. It’s another to get to watch the culture transform as it engages for the first time with something And I have this envy for a great many cinematic works. Like, what I would give to go back to 1946 and tell those losers who dismissed It's a Wonderful Life how they had no idea what they were sleeping on. But the Disney canon’s place within the culture is also specific. Their commitment to delivering hopeful stories to an audience that believes itself beyond such frailties as faith or kindness is unparalleled, and that makes their contributions worth studying and celebrating. And so I didn’t take it for granted during that period in late 2013/early ...

Toy Story 4: Pixar's Tribute to Regression

It was about this time last year that I came across the one person who actually hated Toy Story 3 . I was reading Jason Sperb’s book “Flickers of Film: Nostalgia in the Age of Digital Cinema” as part of my research for my essay on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu . It was in one of his chapters on the Pixar phenomenon that he shared his observation from the ending of Toy Story 3 , essentially casting the film as this nostalgia mousetrap for adults: “ If Andy lets go of his childhood nostalgia and moves on, then Toy Story fans don’t really have to , as the narrative recognition in the potential value in such an act is sufficient. Actually moving on becomes indefinitely deferred in an endless cycle of consumption (rewatching the movies, purchasing new versions of the movie, purchasing more and more Toy Story-related merchandise, rewatching them yet again with the next generat...

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Clash of the Titans

Anyone else remember the year we spent wondering if we would ever again see a movie that wasn't coming out in 3D? T hat surge in 3D films in the early months of 2010 led to a number of questionable executive decisions. We saw a lot of films envisioned as standard film experiences refitted into the 3D format at the eleventh hour. In the ten years since, 3D stopped being profitable because audiences quickly learned the difference between a film that was designed with the 3D experience in mind and the brazen imitators . Perhaps the most notorious victim of this trend was the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans . Why am I suddenly so obsessed with the fallout of a film gone from the public consciousness ten years now? Maybe it's me recently finishing the first season of Blood of Zeus on Netflix and seeing so clearly what Clash of the Titans very nearly was. Maybe it's my evolving thoughts on the Percy Jacks...

Some Much Needed Love for Megamind

Following this year's Oscars ceremony, filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directors of The Lego Movie , penned an op-ed for Variety bemoaning the stigma around animated films. They report taking issue with Naomi Scott, one of the presenters for best animated film, saying that animated films are some of the most formative experiences a kid has, and that kids tend to watch these films over and over, further noting "I think some of the parents out there know exactly what I'm talking about." Lord and Miller seemed to take this as implying that adults can't appreciate animated films, saying "Surely no one set out to diminish animated films, but it’s high time we set out to elevate them." I didn't personally find Scott's observation that kids make their parents watch the same animated films over and over again innately demeaning--certainly not any more than Schumer joking that her toddler made he...

REVIEW: Supergirl

Some will say, "We don't need another edgy superhero!" But that's not what makes the utter mediocrity of DC's new Supergirl so devastating. People were saying "We don't need another X superhero" since 2012, and the post-Infinity saga stupor we've slogged through was not triggered by piling one-too-many superheroes onto the camel's back. The Flash sucked because its perversion of the butterfly effect theory was convoluted and ham-fisted. Black Adam sucked because nobody on that film knew what a moral dilemma actually looks like. "Love and Thunder" sucked because, despite what everyone thought in 2017, Waititi's style only barely worked in "Ragnarok" and was not going to work in a script which feels like it was farted out half-past midnight. Supergirl had none of those issues. The real tragedy of Supergirl is that it so easily could have worked. Drifting around the universe has mostly worked for Sup...

REVIEW: The Wild Robot

I think I must have known that Chris Sanders had another movie on deck, but I guess I had forgotten it was coming out so soon. For whatever reason, when I saw his name at the end of the credits for The Wild Robot , out this weekend, I was caught off guard ... and then realized that it actually explained a lot. The basic premise felt broadly reminiscent of Lilo & Stitch , and there was at least one sequence that definitely recalled How to Train Your Dragon , both of which Sanders co-directed with Dean Deblois (executive producer on this film). With his latest offering for Dreamworks, Sanders cements his position as a titan in the world of animation. The movie sees ROZ, a shipwrecked robot stranded on an island completely untouched by humans. One would think that such an Eden would be bereft of the squabbles that humans seem so happy to create, but the animals of the island revile this new intruder and put up every fence they have. The only thin...

Reveling in the Mixed Messages of Miss Congeniality

In book ten of Metamorphoses, Greek poet Ovid tells the tale of Pygmalion, a talented sculptor living in the height of ancient Greek society. According to the story, Pygmalion’s sculpting prowess was so impeccable that one of his pieces, a marble woman he christened Galatea, was said to be the lovelier than any woman of flesh and blood. Pygmalion was so taken by his creation that he brought her exotic gifts, kissed her marble cheeks, even prepared a luxurious bed for her. Pygmalion so pined to be loved by Galatea that he prayed to the goddess Aphrodite to allow Galatea to reciprocate his love and affection. Aphrodite was apparently in a good mood that day, so she granted Pygmalion’s wish, giving life to Galatea, whom he then wed. The story of Pygmalion is in essence the story of a man who creates his own idealized woman out of whole cloth (or more appropriately, marble), endowing her with all the traits that he finds appealing or alluring. The story also provides a m...

Finding Nemo: The Thing About Film Criticism ...

Film is a mysterious thing. It triggers emotional responses in the audience that are as surprising as they are all-encompassing. As a medium, film is capable of painting stunning vistas that feel like they could only come to life behind the silver screen, but many of the most arresting displays on film arise from scenes that are familiar, perhaps even mundanely so. It’s an artform built on rules and guidelines–young film students are probably familiar with principles like the rule of thirds or the Kuleshov effect–but someone tell me the rule that explains why a line like “We’ll always have Paris,” just levels you. There are parts of the film discussion that cannot be anticipated by a formula or a rulebook, and for that we should be grateful. Arrival (2016) But the thing about film–and especially film criticism–is that film critics are not soothsayers. Their means of divining the artis...

REVIEW: WICKED - For Good

I'm conflicted about how to approach this review. I know everyone has their own yellow brick road to the myth of The Wizard of Oz as a whole and the specific Broadway adaptation that brought us all here. I don't want to write this only for others who are familiar with the source material. Even so, I can't help but review this from the perspective of a fan of the Broadway show--someone who has been tracking the potential for a film adaptation since before Jon M. Chu's participation was announced for the ambitious undertaking of translating one of Broadway's most electric shows onto film. I can't help but view this from the vantage point of someone who knew just how many opportunities this had to go wrong. And it's from that vantage point that I now profess such profound relief that the gambit paid off. We truly have the " Lord of the Rings of musicals ." What Jon M. Chu and his team have done here with these two...

Saying Goodbye to Stranger Things

There's a quote from critic Mark Caro that I think about a lot. I shared it back when I did my critical survey of Pixar movies . Writing about Finding Nemo , Caro wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 2003 , "Classic film eras tend to get recognized in retrospect while we take for granted timeless works passing before our eyes. So let's pause to appreciate what's been going on at Pixar Animation Studios." I think that captures the aspirations of all active-minded media consumers. Or at least, it ought to. "This good thing won't last forever, so savor it before the sun goes down." Modern Times (1936) But this is also a very hard mindset to access in an online culture that is always seeking to stamp labels and scores on a thing before we shove it on the conveyor belt and move on to the next parcel. It's something I have been thinking about for the last year or so as the completion of the Stranger ...

Films and Feelings

Search This Blog