Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

The inspiration to do Wonder Woman 1984 came from director Patty Jenkins and her co-writer Geoff Johns. Both happened to be big fans of the 1978 film Superman and its sequels, and they wanted to do a superhero film in the style of those movies like Richard Donner and Richard Lester. In fact, Johns, a veteran and very prolific writer for DC comics for over two decades, considers Superman to be his all-time favorite film, leading him to the entertainment industry when he took a job as Donner’s intern early in his career.

Measured by what the creators intended to make, a superhero movie is every bit as campy and heroic as the ones made when Superman was still a viable franchise and “Wonder Woman” with Lynda Carter was on television. Wonder Woman 1984 is successful. It surely gives us colorful villains who, like Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor, seem to fail upward. They’re bumblers with character flaws and delusions of grandeur that find their way into wealth and power. The power they wield is perilous because they revel in getting back at the world that made them their doormat for most of their lives.

However, for as noble an effort as WW84 is to give audiences a throwback, it’s also a failure because audiences will likely not recognize the intent, and many who do recognize it may not want it. What most audiences do want is a continuation of the successful formula of 2017’s Wonder Woman,  and will likely be frustrated that it’s being shoehorned into an older formula that might have worked in the early 1980s, when Hollywood didn’t know how to make superhero movies except to make them romantic and comical, rather than for audiences today, who are very sophisticated about their entertainment surrounding capes.

Another issue is that Donner’s original Superman was a success in basic storytelling, showing us, in under 2.5 hours of screentime, Kal-El’s infancy on Krypton, his exodus, his childhood with the adoptive family (the Kents), his discovery of his ancestry, his occupation as a newspaper reporter, his romance with fellow reporter Lois Lane, and the rise of his eventual nemesis in Lex Luthor, all the while building into a cataclysmic finale. Wonder Woman 1984 gives us a lengthy action sequence from Diana’s early childhood that has next to nothing to do with all of the rest of the movie that follows, then another extended action sequence in a shopping mall that also has very little need to be in the film from a narrative standpoint. Whereas Superman had a clear direction, WW84‘s narrative throughline is haphazardly clung to, sometimes nonexistent for long stretches.  And it’s also longer than Superman in telling what little story it has.

The film opens with a lengthy sequence from Diana’s childhood on the hidden island of Themyscira, competing in games that test her strength, endurance, and resolve against grown women. What does this have to do with anything else that follows? It was not a great deal – perhaps a life lesson that didn’t need to be told to understand Diana’s outlook on right and wrong.

Then we flash forward to the “present-day” of 1984 to deliver a film that could have been set in the present day and achieved much of the same outcome, except for the nostalgic feels like music, wardrobe, and Cold War politics. Here is where storytelling begins to fail the franchise. We see Wonder Woman in action at the shopping mall with no explanation of how she got the name “Wonder Woman.” We then see Diana Prince working in her occupation as an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Why does no one see that this stunningly beautiful and statuesque woman with an accent is a dead ringer for Wonder Woman? Or that she hasn’t aged in three-quarters of a century?

We learn that despite the passing of nearly seven decades that Diana is still pining (no pun intended) for the Chris Pine character from Wonder Woman, the American spy from World War I that she barely really knew, Steve Trevor. No other man has ever caught her interest because Steve has become her all-time soulmate in her mind since he sacrificed himself for a greater good, as witnessed in the first film. Her lack of social life is what allows her to spend her off-hours putting her superpowers to use in righting the wrongs of the world – not that she has made a difference since the world of 1984 seems identical to the one that actually existed without Wonder Woman has been in it since the Great War.

The prolonged armed raid of the shopping mal reveals a jewelry store used as a front to fence valuable but stolen ancient artifacts brought to the Smithsonian for Diana and her team to identify. That’s where we meet the newly hired Barbara Minerva, a mousy gem specialist with self-esteem issues, particularly around the self-confident and beautiful Diana Prince. In particular, one stands out, a phallic piece identified as the Dreamstone, a crystal of myth once believed throughout ancient history to grant wishes. Cavalierly, Barbara makes her wish to be like Diana, though not knowing that also means like Wonder Woman as a by-product. Diana makes her wish for Steve Trevor to be back in her life to continue the life they never got to spend together.

Overnight, Barbara’s confidence begins to grow, and the men take note of her beauty while she begins to grow in strength and agility. At the same time, Diana is approached by a mysterious strange claiming to be Steve Trevor. He doesn’t look like him, but after a few words that only Steve might know, she sees the character with Chris Pine’s face and voice henceforth. (This aspect will require audiences not to think too hard about an innocent man whose body will be used nonconsensually indefinitely for Diana to romance, while also having no family or friends in his life to notice he’s completely changed).

Villainy soon enters the scene when Max Lord, a TV infomercial conman who has headed the financially failing oil company called Black Gold Cooperative, enters the scene. Lord discovers they have the Dreamstone, and he’s desperate enough to give it a try, using his charm on Barbara to get his hands on the piece and make his wish – which is to have the stone’s powers. The physical stone disintegrates, and now Max has the power to grant anyone a wish – a power he uses in exchanges for the wealth, power, and fame of others who deal with him directly.

However, what the wish makers don’t know is that there is a catch. Gaining the thing they desire most means losing the thing of most value they already possess. In Barbara’s case, it is her kindness. In Max’s case, it is a good father. And in Diana’s case, it is the superpowers she needs to save the world.

Comparing Wonder Woman to Superman isn’t too far off, given their lack of physical vulnerability, outsider status, and inherent goodness. Wonder Woman isn’t about getting revenge on villains so much about trying to make the world a better and safer place. She is more in tune with how humans are living their lives and how they can live better. A good person, in her mind, is selfless, and a bad one is selfish. Her vulnerability is not physical, but she can be hurt emotionally, which is why Steve Trevor’s return pouts her into a dangerous position in choosing between her personal needs and her desire to help the world.  It is important to show that her strength is of her character, not her ability to pummel bad guys into the ground. Like Superman II, a choice between their personal love lives and the physical power to do greater good comes into question for Diana, leading to the film’s main conundrum.

If Diana is Superman from the films of the early 1980s, then Steve Trevor takes his traits from another icon in films from that period, Indiana Jones. He, too, is a man of adventure and resolve, willing to fight to do what’s right as part of his duty for the country and humanity as a whole.  He shares Diana’s sense of right and wrong, making him the perfect choice for her as a potential mate. Gadot and Pine continue seemingly effortless chemistry together on the screen that makes their pairing fun to watch, particularly in the man-out-of-time sequences in which Steve marvels at how society had changed from when he was last alive.

Kristen Wiig shows a vulnerability, yet has the capability for sexiness beyond her comical demeanor. In comics, the character of Cheetah is friends with Diana yet also is very jealous of her. As with the Superman films, the villains are depicted as buffoons and carry a great deal of capacity for harm due to a loss of ethics and morality that brought them to power.

The commentary on the 1980s was the beginning of mass consumerism and the “me” generation, which is antithetical to Wonder Woman’s philosophy of community and sacrifice. Max Lord feels that you can never have enough – you always want more, and there is no shame in it. What is never said is what all the consumerism and living to acquire more regardless of consequence does to society. There isn’t enough wealth to go around. For one person to be wealthy, many others have to be without. For one person to be powerful, many more have to lose power. Essentially, Diana is confronting the evil that is our times, or, at least, the times of the 1980s that have only grown worse today.  Everyone wants, and when they have, they want more.

Although the makers claim they patterned the character after Gordon Gekko in Wall Street and Bernie Madoff, some will likely read Donald Trump into the Max Lord character – a businessman and TV personality who markets himself as a success (even if he’s not) and who parlays the wishes of his cronies and the public in need to make him the most powerful person on Earth. He’s putting all his chips into greed and consumption also brings a rise of this in others’ trading their morality for personal gain, rather than what’s best for their families or communities. It’s a message that likely would have had more resonance if the film were released before the 2020 election, though, realistically, it’s still a message that needs to be said. For now, they’re downplaying how much Trump influenced the development of the character, likely because they don’t want to alienate potential audiences.

The assets are mostly from the first film: there are fun moments to be had, good action, engaging character performances, and plenty to dazzle the eye. It’s entertaining enough to garner a recommendation for escapism’s sake, even if the storytelling issues carry quite a bit of bloat and overhead into what might have been a much more compelling streamlined affair. No surprise that Warner Bros’ execs wanted to cut out the two big action set pieces at the start of the film, thinking it would have helped the film overall. Without them, though, there would hardly be any action for most of the first half, which also carries its modern audiences’ issues.

While many will consider Wonder Woman 1984 as a failure to continue the first film’s winning formula, I personally do admire the risks it takes to differentiate it. It’s an ambitious superhero film in a genre growing more difficult to break out of the mold. While its pacing and expository issues are too substantial to proclaim it a good film, it’s certainly not the kind of movie that deserves to be as maligned as it has been in social media throughout its early days since being released to the public in theaters and on HBO Max, where it debuted due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Like the film’s message, there’s more value in seeing the good in others than in pointing out their flaws, and Wonder Woman 1984 will likely emerge as one of the more underappreciated superhero films of its era. Time will be kind.

Qwipster’s rating: B

MPAA Rated: PG-13 for sequences of action and violence
Run time: 151 min.

Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lilly Aspell, Amr Waked, Kristoffer Polaha
Cameo: Lynda Carter
Director: Patty Jenkins
Screenplay: Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, Dave Callaham