Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).

Directed by Patty Jenkins

Written by Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, and Dave Callahan

Starring Gal Gadot, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Pine

1. (The Stage)

It’s 1984, and there’s a stone that has the ability to grant people wishes! Max Lord uses this power to take control of the world’s oil supply, Diana uses this power to bring Steve Trevor back from the dead, and Barbara uses this power to change from a nerd into a hot girl, but with super powers!

2. (The Good)

I saw a Waldenbooks in the background, so that was fun.

3. (The Bad)

I’m sorry, this is going to be long. I fucking hated this film. Aside from the stupid plot (which is a shame, because the idea of wishes gone bad is an interesting one), the CGI is horrendous, the action scenes are lame, everyone not named Pedro Pascal is lifeless, the atmosphere feels incredibly forced, and the film is much too long.

Let’s start with the CGI. This is the worst big budget CGI I’ve seen since Black Panther. Whenever Wonder Woman is jumping, swinging, or running, it looks awful. In most scenes it just looks like a kid strapped into a harness trying to run up the Aggrocrag on an episode of Nickelodeon Guts. A scene in which she’s in the clouds looks like it could have been an SNL skit. The bad CGI really shows its seams in the action scenes. There’s a scene that takes place in a mall that my wife and I honestly thought was going to end up being a parody “Wonder Woman” movie being made in the 80’s as some sort of in-joke - I was actually shocked that it wasn’t. Every action sequence feels like executives said, “Let’s study some Marvel movies, and try to do that, but just way worse and without life.”

The characters all kind of suck, but the worst of them all is Diana herself. As a Smithsonian employee, she seems like she’s always having the worst time. As Wonder Woman, she has a slew of powers, but she only uses them when it’s convenient for the plot. Take her new found invisibility power, for example, which she uses to cloak an airplane but chooses not to when she needs to infiltrate the White House or a highly guarded military base. None of it makes any goddamn sense. And if you’re going to shoehorn an Asian actor in just to check a diversity box, snag a child who can act.

But this movie must be fun, it takes place in the 80’s! This film looks like it was made by people who think they know what the 80’s looked like because they watched some old Saved By The Bell episodes and picked up an “80’s Chick” costume at Spirit on their way to a Halloween party. 80’s malls were not lined with neon and bright colors, they looked just like malls today, only with a lot more people and Sam Goody stores. Of course there’s a “Let’s try on all these wacky 80’s outfits!” scene. Give me a fucking break.

At two and a half hours, this film is about an hour too long. So many scenes could have been excised from this movie and not a thing would be changed narratively. A long scene in which a plane is flying through fireworks. Looks cool, but unnecessary. The beginning ‘Olympics’ scene. All that to tell us “You have to do things the right way.” This is Wonder Woman, we already expect her to do things the right way. The second scene in the mall, unnecessary and stupid. Just tell us that the FBI raided some warehouse that was a front for old shit, we’ll believe it. We didn’t need to see it.

4. (The Ugly)

Wonder Woman totally raped that dude…right?

For this section, let us just examine how wishes work, specifically, Diana’s. She wishes that Steve was alive. Now, for other peoples’ wishes, things just pop out of mid-air, like cows and nukes. but for Diana’s wish, another actual functioning human being just sort of turns into Steve in Diana’s eyes. In others eyes, however, he’s the same guy (for the sake of this, we’ll call him Joe Schmo). We know this because Steve looks into a mirror and he sees the other dude. So Joe Schmo has this pretend (?) personality projected by Diana, but she’s fully aware that it’s not actually Steve. Eventually, she realizes that the world’s needs are greater than her own, so she renounces her wish, the dude turns back into Mr. Schmo, and all is right in Diana’s world again.

Let’s look at this from Joe’s point of view. One day, he’s grabbing a coffee at a Washington DC Starbucks, the next…poof. This motherfucker has gone missing. Several days later, he just snaps out of it on the street in the middle of a riot. What if this guy was married or had kids? They must have reported him missing. What if people saw him walking around town with Diana and told his wife? Do you think the, “I’m sorry honey, I don’t know what to tell you, I wasn’t cheating, I blacked out and woke up several days later with no recollection of the past week!” excuse would actually work? Diana also put the man’s life at risk several times (he’s on camera infiltrating the White House) and she essentially raped him.

At the end, there’s a moment when the two meet again, but he has no recollection of her. She’s standing there looking at him thinking about Steve. The audience is sitting there looking at him thinking “She’s seen your dick lol”. If the genders were reversed, and Superman had sex with some unsuspecting woman knowing that she was someone else, would he be canceled?

5. (The End)

I renounce my wish for a Wonder Woman sequel!

This is the worst superhero film I’ve ever seen (note: I haven’t seen the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie or Justice League). It was complete garbage from start to finish. I cannot understand how the majority of critics like this film and I wonder if this came out in theaters in a pre-COVID world, if it would be getting the same response.

If you want an 80’s vibe, go watch Stranger Things. If you want a ‘wishes gone bad’ vibe, go watch The Wishmaster series. If you want a ‘strong woman’ vibe, go watch Mad Max Fury Road or Atomic Blonde.

This movie sucked.