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