It's been 325 days since my last theater experience. Coincidentally, my last theater experience was seeing another DCEU entry, Birds of Prey, on opening night pre-Covid. In a post-Covid world, seeing Wonder Woman 1984 in IMAX was simply special. I wish I could say the same thing about the film itself.
Starting with my positives, Han Zimmer's score is arguably better this time around. I was quite surprised given that I liked the first film's score so much. Wonder Woman's theme, which made its first appearance in Batman V. Superman, is slightly updated in Wonder Woman 84. I personally enjoyed her theme about the same, but the score, in general, sounded great.
The one scene that really stood out to me was the opening scene in Themyscira. It was extremely well shot and well put together. The VFX looked great, something I can't say about the rest of the film. Though I really enjoyed the scene, I can't help but think it's fairly out of place in the film. The themes that the set up in the beginning truly don't become fully-realized in the climax.
Gal Gadot is a tough actress to talk about for me personally. Objectively, I truly don't think she is a great actress in any way. However, I think she embodies Diana Prince extremely well throughout her appearances in the DCEU. Though she is solid for the most part throughout the film, there are quite a few instances of awkward line deliveries from her. Though the problem mainly lies on the borderline awful script that I will dive into later.
Chris Pine is another complicated topic to discuss. I feel that he and Gadot have pretty good chemistry throughout the first film and this one. However, his purpose and appearance as Steve Trevor in the film's narrative is simply weak and unneeded. I understand from a marketing and profit standpoint, it would make sense to have him return in the sequel. From a pure narrative and emotional standpoint, it robs the ending of the first film. All my complaints with Steve Trevor aside, I liked Pine again this time around.
Love or hate the DCEU, one thing that cannot be criticized is the visuals in many of the films. Man of Steel, Batman V. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Birds of Prey, in particular, have solid cinematography and VFX throughout. Wonder Woman 1984 does not. I truly don't know where the reported $200 million budget went in this. For perspective, the first Wonder Woman cost $150. The CGI is simply bad throughout. The green screen in some scenes is laughable. One scene, in particular, that stands out is when Diana is running during the car chase scene. The composition of the shot of her running in front of a greenscreen is reminiscent of the bad effects used in the CW shows such as The Flash. My friend, Justin, actually laughed out loud at the shot. Though the third act fight with Kristen Wig's Cheetah wasn't laughable, it certainly wasn't good. If I'm being honest, I thought Cheetah was going to look worse than she actually did. That being said, it wasn't great either. Of course, it helped since the director, Patty Jenkins, decided to have the fight take place at night to mask the CGI.
Speaking of Patty Jenkins, I don't really know what went wrong here. It's reported that she had much more control of this film compared to Wonder Woman, being apart of the three-person writing crew as well as directing. The script that she, Geoff Johns (the only returning screenwriter from the first film), and Dave Callaham wrote is pretty bad. The screenplay is filled with cringy dialogue, unmemorable action set pieces, and jumbled themes. The first element of Wonder Woman 1984 that hit me when leaving the theater is that nothing in this film comes close to being as memorable or well-made as the No Man's Land scene in the first film. All four major action set-pieces were at best solid and at worst cringe-inducing.
Kristen Wig's Barbara Minerva and Pedro Pascal's Maxwell Lord were disappointing antagonists to me. This has nothing to do with the pair's acting ability. I believe both of them are great actors respectively. This has all to do with the extremely poor script created by Jenkins and company. Barbra Minerva, in particular, was such a cliche comic book film antagonist. She joins the likes of Jamie Fox's Electro and Jim Carrey's Riddler. Maxwell Lord was too over-the-top for me. His plan and the effects of the plan don't really make sense when you sit back and think about them and their aftermath.
My final negative with Wonder Woman 1984 would be its runtime. Coming in at 151 minutes, it's only six minutes longer than the first film. However, it feels much longer and underwhelming. I don't know why this film was two and a half hours; it could have easily been two. This comes mostly from poor editing throughout the film.
Wonder Woman 1984 is a disappointing sequel to the original film. Being that Wonder Woman is one of my favorite DC films and my second favorite DCEU film, I had fairly high expectations going in. Patty Jenkins dropped the ball on this one. The overly-long runtime, poor special effects, and a poor script make the film a not-so-worthy predecessor to the 2017 film.
5.5/10
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