Wonder Woman 1984 Review (Spoiler-Free) - CULTURETAP

Even the most dedicated DC Comics fans (like myself) can admit that the DC Extended Universe movies have been on the struggle bus since the very beginning. Their films thus far have seemed to linger between the "totally irredeemable and an absolute waste of time" and "meh, I guess it was okay" range by critics and fans alike, which is a far cry from their hitmaker competition, Marvel Studios. So, the question then becomes: can DC really keep up at this point? Well, before we answer this, let me get something straight. I love DC. They've always been my preference simply because I grew up on their media much more than I did Marvel, so you should know that my above DCEU slander doesn't come from a place of malice. I'm more like a disappointed mother, wanting more for these characters and stories than what is being given to them. A major reason for this is because of my love for Wonder Woman.

Yes, believe it or not, I was raised on the kind and noble values of Wonder Woman and absolutely adored her as a kid, and not just because she was the only popular female member of the Justice League at the time. (Well, Hawkgirl was on the Justice League cartoon too, but she wasn't as cool, and was therefore designated to my younger sister when we would play with our JL action figures as kids. But I digress). Even though I made the switch to Harley Quinn being my favourite character as I grew into an angsty teenager, Wonder Woman has always held a special place in my heart, and I've been excited to review her return in Wonder Woman 1984 for a long time. So, without further adieu, let's get into my review of this movie.

Even though I didn't consider it amazing, I would say that I enjoyed the first Wonder Woman film. I didn't have a ton of complaints, and it fell more towards the "meh, I guess it was okay" side of the scale, thus making it one of the better DC films. I expected to have the same reaction here. Well, I got that, only marginally worse. Let's break down what did and didn't work about Wonder Woman 1984.

ACTING PERFORMANCES, PLOT AND DIALOGUE

You know when people complain about how Disney ruins the properties it purchases by making it childlike and cliché? That's how I felt about this movie, and DC isn't even owned by Disney. There were so many moments in dialogue that felt incredibly elementary, and the narrative simply worked too hard as a fable rather than a story made strictly for entertainment. I can't tell you how many times a scene ended because a resolution occurred just in the nick of time by some stroke of miracle. This flaw was unfortunately emphasized through a consistent breaking of the "show, don't tell" rule, which was also primarily achieved through the dialogue. Furthermore, I unfortunately saw some negative patterns consistent with other DC movies in WW84, one of them being that most of their films seem to have a problem measuring the threat of the antagonist against the abilities of the protagonist(s). For example, Suicide Squad's Enchantress was more of a Justice League level threat, destroying entire cities and causing major weather changes with her powers, while Justice League's Steppenwolf came with the aim of overtaking Earth, but seemed to barely disturb a small European city during the film's climax. This is exactly the kind of event that took place in Wonder Woman 1984. While Wonder Woman is one of the fiercest and most powerful heroes in this universe in her own right, the conflict in this movie (while I won't give away what it is) is one that should have been handled by the entire Justice League based on the sheer proportions of what takes place (if we assume that the plot wasn't full of holes, which it was).

One thing I can give props to is the acting by all major characters involved. Gal Gadot gave a great performance, and I want to also especially highlight Kristen Wiig's Barbara Minerva, whom I enjoyed watching descend into the villainous Cheetah through a solid performance. However, despite this, I can't ignore the fact that we've seen this trope so often before in her character, even within the DCEU: Wiig's character was basically an upgrade of Cara Delevingne's June Moone/Enchantress in Suicide Squad, i.e., an unassuming nerd gains supernatural powers and is corrupted by them (which, by the way, I don't consider a spoiler since it was in all the major trailers). Despite this flaw, praise shouldn't be taken away from the performances of the incredibly talented actors and actresses involved, who all did great. In my opinion, the acting was probably the strongest facet of this movie.

CINEMATOGRAPHY, VISUAL EFFECTS, TECHNICALITIES

Remember that thing I said earlier about Disney movies? Yeah, these parts of the film didn't help with that.

Let's start with a somewhat unusual complaint that bothered me the most during the movie: the action sequences, while not necessarily bad in concept, were incredibly awkward in execution. The first part of this problem is simply that most shots (especially ones with a lot of action in them) went on for way too long, again aiding the whole Disney concept. The second problem with them gets a little more complex. Sometimes in film criticism, you'll hear people talk about "the male gaze", which is essentially a concept that asserts that movies that are made by men have an inherent view of the film that pertains to masculine desires. I've never particularly noticed it or been bothered by it, but that changed with this movie...which has a female director.

That's a problem.

In simple terms, here's my beef: the action shots made Gadot look too pretty. And before you get on my case, no, I swear it's not because I'm jealous of how absolutely gorgeous this woman is (which, um...I'm totally not...ha ha). I mean that she looked "too pretty" in the sense that it literally looked like she was modelling through the shots. It felt unnatural and took me out of the movie. I don't care how gorgeous you are: if you're in the middle of heated battle, you're not supposed to simultaneously look like you're in the middle of a Neutrogena commercial. This is something the first Wonder Woman movie did right: action shots made her look like the fierce-as-hell warrior that she is and didn't worry as much about making her look attractive in a traditional sense. Patty Jenkins also directed that movie, so I really don't know what compelled her to change that aspect in the sequel. And again, if the first time I recognize the "male gaze" in a film is in one that has a female director and a female-dominated cast and crew, there's a problem.

This wasn't the only thing wrong with action shots. This might bleed into the "plot" section as well, but there seemed to be a lot of inconsistencies or convenient changes to Diana's powers whenever the film demanded it. Some things seem to unnaturally come out of nowhere, and not in interesting ways. I can't get into this part too much, as I've promised to avoid spoilers, but I'll leave you with this much: the lasso isn't supposed to work like that. It never has.

My other complaints in this category are ones we've all seen before, so I won't dwell on them too much. Everyone's talking about the CGI done on Cheetah, so here's my view on it: it wasn't the worst in the world in my opinion; the only thing that I thought looked weird was the work done on her face. However, I also believe that flaws were compensated for by doing literally all of Wiig's shots as Cheetah in low light to hide imperfections. DC did their signature "oh look it's randomly nighttime for some reason" move in order to achieve this.

BIG TAKEAWAYS

So, is Wonder Woman 1984 worth your time? In some senses, yes, and in others, no. I do take a very critical approach to the movies I look at, but in terms of general audiences, I still think this is one of those ones that people are going to be very split on. I can't say I wasn't entertained, but I was also entertained in the sense of (and I'm sorry for continuing to use this analogy) watching a Disney movie, and that's not what I should get when going into a live-action superhero film. My problems with it are basically that it was solid in premise, but just too elementary in execution, and that the only thing I can really give true praise to are the acting performances. Wonder Woman 1984 will not redeem the DC Extended Universe, but it's a very, very small step in the right direction, and I think that's all we can hope for at this point.

Rating: 6.6/10