Wonder woman 1984 film

The hotly-anticipated sequel to the 2017 movie

Wonder woman 1984 dropped less like the hottest new mix tape

and more like… well, insert poo joke here.

The first movie was decent enough, but the sequel is the cinematic equivalent of afterbirth. And I would argue that it’s the worst entry in the DC cinematic universe thus far. And I understand that’s quite a claim, given that it’s DC we’re talking about, but I stand by it. Because as flawed as Suicide Squad, Batman Vs Superman, Justice League, Aquaman, and Birds of Prey were- (Wait, isn’t that like, most of the DC cinematic universe… f*cng hell…). In my opinion no other DC movie has so little regard for good writing. Which for me, is all-important when judging a movie. I can’t even cover every aspect of how awful it is, because this review would then be longer than the movie itself.

So consider this merely the scummy crust of the turd sandwich. To better understand what follows, it would be very useful to have a quick summary of the plot so: *clear throat* SPOILER WARNING! Since the events of the first movie, Diana Prince has spent the last 66 years keeping to herself. (Or not keeping to herself, but we’ll get to that.). A magic wishing rock *sigh…*. A magic wishing rock gets delivered to the Smithsonian Institute where she works. She still hasn’t moved on from her one-and-only love Steve Trevor, who last time we saw him was deader than Trump’s twitter account. So she wishes he could come back. And he does, but in another man’s body.

Her colleague and awkward loser Barbara Minerva wishes to be like her, so she acquires her powers but at the cost of her own kindness, and eventually becomes Wonder Woman’s iconic arch enemy, Cheetah. Flamboyant 80s-style conman Max Lord steals the stone and turns himself into it with a wish. Kinda like asking a genie for more wishes. It feels like cheating. Dr Rockso: “I DO COCCAINE!”. Dr Rockso: “I do coccaine…”. He gets greedy and starts granting everyone’s wishes but taking what he wants in return. But because it acts like a monkey’s paw, the whole world goes to heck.

For Diana, the price was losing her powers, forcing her to renounce her wish and lose Steve for good. After defeating Cheetah, she interrupts Lord as he grants the world’s wishes via satellite, showing him the error of his ways, and convincing everyone to renounce their wishes and the world goes back to normal. *Deep breath* Okay, I think we’re good. “MYEH YOU JUST HATE IT BECAUSE YOU HATE WAHMEN!”. No, no I don’t…. Now go back to huffing paint. But you know what else doesn’t hate women?

Link in the description. Now where were we? Oh yeah, stupid arguments! First of all, saying that other superhero movies have the same issues doesn’t mean that they aren’t issues. Also, no, not every superhero movie has these problems, and if they do, they don’t have them to this extent.

And I maintain that no other superhero movie, not even the other DC movies, comes close to the amount of ridiculous nonsense in Wonder Woman 84. And I don’t care that it’s a comic book movie! That’s not an excuse! Audiences deserve better than this. I shouldn’t have to turn off my brain in order to enjoy a movie, but this one clearly wants me to. Because the plot has more holes in it than the poor sod who tipped off about the Feds about Jeffrey Epstein. And these aren’t just nitpicks that can be dismissed out of hand. They’re fundamental deficiencies in the manner in which the story progresses. And I’ve never felt more vindicated in my belief that plot holes are both a real thing and a valid subject of criticism. But hey, who cares about story and characters, right? “Ironic…”.

Well, before we dive into the maelstrom of sewage that is the story, let’s talk about the characters. Of course, this is nothing new. “Kal-El No!” “What the hell was that?!”. But she was paid 10 million dollars for this, so you’d think she’d put in more effort. But she presents with all the emotional range of Rey Skywalker. She’s more convincing when she’s lying on Twitter. And this time around, Diana is really bad at being a superhero. She repeatedly saves people in ways that could have very easily gotten them or others even more badly hurt! She buys this guy’s taxi and then leaves him stranded in the middle of the f*cking desert! And she straight-up drops some dudes off a building and onto a police car, which really should have killed them! She does save some Arab kids though (or really fake looking dolls ).

Which is kinda ironic, all things considered. But before this comments section becomes even more cancerous, Let’s move on to Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva. She also cannot act. She plays the same character in every movie. And here she’s not comedic enough to be funny, she’s not intimidating enough to play the villain, and she’s not a good enough actor to play the tragic victim. She tries *way* too hard to be awkward. In fact her conversations with Diana are more awkward than that time they tried to inspire poor people by singing 'Imagine' from their multi-million dollar mansions. “Imagine there’s no heaven.” “It’s easy if you tryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.” *PAIN* *Pure Cringe* “NO, GOD PLEASE NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”.

They also pretty much queerbaited her character throwing the LGBT community a bone by making it seem like she has more than just friendly affection for Diana without openly stating it so they can reassure those territories that get pissy about that sort of thing: “Nah, it’s cool bro, no homo here!”. While we’re talking about pussy though, Cheetah’s character design is lame. She looks like Chester Cheetah’s crack whore cousin. You can find more interesting designs on DeviantArt. (Don’t try it though, for the love of Christ…).

The decision to set their confrontation at

Night was a terrible one, because you can barely make her out against everything else.

It not only ruins her look, but

Also that of the golden armour that was so hyped up in the marketing.

The cynic in me thinks it was done to hide the bad CGI which is on par with Superman’s mouth in Justice League.

“OH GOD, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?”. I doubt even furries will be able to yiff to this! Not that I would know anything about that of course…. What? What are you looking at? Pedro Pascal and his performance as Max Lord are arguably the best thing about the movie. I mean look at him. He’s adorable, and was obviously having a lot of fun with this. “Imagine no possessions-” “No, Pedro my dude! What are you doing!”. But DC couldn’t bring themselves to break their pattern of making their villains act so over-the-top that you can’t take them seriously. But at least he can actually act, and his character feels more real, three-dimensional and sympathetic than Diana.

Which is also more than I can say for Steve Trevor, who’s just kinda there. He’s so bland, a real shadow of his former self. (Which I guess is somewhat thematically appropriate.). He does bring some much needed comedy, even if most of it falls flat because of the execution. Which is also true of the rest of the forced and unfunny “humour”. ‘Oh look, Chris Pine has a fanny pack! HEHEHEHEHEHE! ZOMG!’. And the parting scene between him and Diana is so anti-climactic that it’s hilarious. “I’ll always love you Diana…”.

On that note, let’s now move on to talk about the story. We’ve already a couple of examples, but the writing really took a nosedive off the sh*t cliff. Patty Jenkins herself co-wrote the story and screenplay, her first since 2003’s Monster. Which was pretty good, so it’s not like she can’t write. There’s “being rusty”, and then there’s just not caring. Because the writing in this movie is utterly ridiculous. So much of it comes across as corny, hammy, even downright juvenile! And this is only exacerbated by it's execution. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”.

It brazenly contradicts facts established in previous DC movies. In both Batman Vs Superman and Justice League, Diana insists that she didn’t help humanity for 100 years after the events of the 2017 film. “A hundred years ago I walked away from mankind.” ”Man made a world where standing together is impossible.". Yet here she is out in the open, apparently not for the first time. And you can’t just say that this isn’t a sequel, and therefore it’s fine to do whatever you want, when it clearly *is* a sequel! *Laugh* You’re not fooling anybody. But it isn’t just about the inconsistencies in the lore. This lack of concern manifests itself in the myriad of writing issues present in this script. Some of this writing simply doesn’t work, because it shouldn’t or doesn’t convey its intended meaning.

Such as when Diana gets wounded at one point, which is supposed to show that she’s losing her powers.

But she’s never been established to be

Bulletproof, so it’s like “okay, i guess that’s bad?”.

The story also heavily relies on some of the most egregious deus ex machina solutions. I’ve ever seen in a mainstream film. They have a problem? Well, here’s a solution that comes completely out of nowhere and is never used again! Perfect! 10/10 IGN! Her Lasso of Truth can now do literally anything she needs it to. She doesn’t have her shield this time, for some reason, but she can spin it fast enough to stops bullets, and then never does it again. She can lasso a bullet out of the air, and then never does it again. She can reach an airplane from near the ground because.

She can swing on lightning. Because. Not only can it force others to tell the truth, but it can also force others to *see* the truth. Which would have been very useful to have during that scene in Justice League when Superman wakes up and forgets who they are. BUT I GUESS SHE JUST KINDA FORGOT ABOUT THAT! Oh and thanks to Steve, she learns how to fly, which also might have come in handy in future. BUT I GUESS SHE JUST KINDA FORGOT ABOUT THAT AS WELL! And then there’s the Magic Wishing rock, which can also do whatever the plot needs it to. The way it operates is incredibly inconsistent and having this as the MacGuffin raises so many questions that the film doesn’t even attempt to answer. In fact, it’s actually quite impressive how many things the movie does very little to explain or establish given how much time it has to do so.

But on the other hand, the movie doesn’t trust its audience to work out quite obvious things for themselves. That’s why they have Steve’s speech about flight play over the scene where Diana learns how to fly. Because they think you’ll forget what inspired her to do so. If you hadn’t fallen asleep already. And then there’s a load of writing that’s just straight-up dumb. In lieu of running through the entire movie beat-by-beat because this movie is two and a half hours long so f*ck that! I want to highlight just ONE scene that exemplifies just how batsh*t this film is. And bear in mind, there’s a lot more that I’m leaving out, but this should give you an idea of the level we’re on. Uh, maybe Steve doesn’t, but the well-off guy whose body he’s inhabiting might! The person that he actually looks like?! I GUESS THEY JUST FORGOT ABOUT THAT! But because of this contrivance , she decides to steal a plane from the Smithsonian, which just so happens to be fully fueled, ready to fly and totally unguarded.

None of which it would be. And Steve just so happens to be able to fly it despite it being drastically different from WW1 biplanes. Not only that, but this type of plane has a maximum range of 1000 miles, so it wouldn’t be able to reach Egypt in one go like they need to. “Oh, I forgot to tell you!" "What?" "Radar. I can’t explain now. But they'll see us, anywhere. Even in the dark." ‘Oh by the way there’s radar?!’ Why are you only telling him this now?! “Well sh*t Diana!”. But to solve this problem, she suddenly has the ability to turn things invisible.

And despite only doing this once before off screen on a coffee cup, she manages it, and they get away. Right, that’s not how radar works, but even ignoring that, saying *Oh but it’s magic* like they pretty much do, is a bullsh*t excuse, And the fact that she suddenly pulls it out of her back pocket is also bullsh*t. And of course this ability never gets used or even mentioned again.

Then they take a detour to fly

Through fireworks, somehow slowing the plane down without stalling it.

Not like they’re on a super urgent

Mission or anything! not to mention the dangers….

And why does Steve sound like he wants to f*ck the plane? “Knowing how to ride it, how to catch it, how to join with it." *Sigh* This one scene. This one scene could have been the article. OH GOD WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR FAAAAA-.

But what about the movie’s themes?! Well, what about them?…. Oh, you want more than that? Okay, well the movie f*cks up its themes too! It tries to have a message about how truth is all-important, it’s all you need, it’s beautiful and so forth. “The truth is bigger than all of us.” “Nothing good is born from lies, Barbara.” “And you cannot have it all. You can only have the truth.” “The truth is enough. The truth is beautiful.”. Yeah, tell that to the people in Auschwitz. You should know, you were there apparently! Except her origin story in the first movie was… a lie! GUESS THEY JUST KINDA FORGOT ABOUT THA-. Much like the 2017 movie, Wonder Woman 1984 markets itself as a woman’s empowerment piece and leans heavily on its feminist aspirations.

Which is fine. You can do that. But then don’t have Diana’s defining characteristic and motivation be that she hasn’t moved on from a dead guy she barely knew for a week 70 years ago and who is still pretty much the focus of her story! Even Steve points out how crazy that is! “You’re the only joy I’ve had or even asked for.” ”I am so sorry.

But that’s crazy!”. So empowering. And just because the film is meant to be inspiring doesn’t excuse it from being sh*t. And to argue otherwise is just patronising to young women. It also falls into the lazy trap of saying ‘MAN BAD’ in order to say ‘WOMAN GOOD’.

Barbara’s colleagues refuse to help her and only pay attention to her after she gets hot. Because MAN BAD. Multiple men creepily hit on her and Diana. Because MAN BAD. A man tries to assault Barbara in the park, and then again despite getting his ass kicked the first time. Because MAN BAD. Every MAN BAD except Steve. And he’s in someone else’s body, which we’ve now got to talk about, because it’s very weird.

And it’s led to controversy around a particular scene that’s been described as a bit “RHYMES WITH GRAPEY”. It’s ambiguous as to whether or not they actually do the dirty, but even if they didn’t, she’s still being physically intimate with Steve while he’s in another man’s body. So it doesn’t change the essential problem of *that* man being unable to consent. She even acknowledges it, and doesn’t care. “How about this guy? How about him?” “I don’t want him. I want you. Why for once can’t I just have this one thing? Steve? This one thing?!".

It goes beyond just a moment of

Weakness.

And trying to defend this by talking about power dynamics is a bit silly, because umm…. SHE’S A SUPERHERO AND HE’S UNCONSCIOUS, HOW IS HE THE ONE WITH POWER?! And just remember that this was the first Hollywood movie to sign up to the PGA’s new #MeToo guidelines, so- *laugh* so it’s pretty ironic all things considered! And instead of making her point clear enough in the movie itself, Patty Jenkins had to retweet someone else’s defence of it! ‘Haha, yeah that’s exactly what I was trying to do, haha… totally…’.

But even if you don’t care at all about the writing and just want to see flashy sh*t on the screen, the movie is an absolute slog to get through. At 2 and a half hours, it’s unjustifiably long, has horrendous pacing, and I’d rather gargle toenail clippings than watch it again. And I had to watch it multiple times! I hope you’re all happy! You know why I had to watch it multiple times? Because I kept zoning out because it’s soooo…slooooow and booooooring! There’s a 45 minute stretch where barely anything happens to keep your attention, which in this kind of movie, is unacceptable.

And given Jenkins’ adamant refusal to remove two overly long and almost pointless scenes at the beginning of the movie, it’s difficult to avoid the impression that this was an exercise in self-indulgence. Honestly, the most fun you’re going to get out of this comes from the truly laughable action scenes, and utterly nonsensical shots. It seems to be a running theme that DC can’t get their CGI to look right.

And while it doesn’t quite reach Justice League levels of awful - for the most part it still looks goofy enough to make you wonder where that $200 million went. While we’re on the subject of looks, this movie is painfully drab compared to its colourful marketing. They failed to utilize the bright and distinctive visual styles of the era they were shamelessly nostalgia baiting for. Leaving us with nothing that our eyes would remember after blinking. Come to think of it, this movie has barely anything to do with the 80s. But the 80s are so hot right now, I guess, so they throw in a bunch of 80s stuff, mostly at the beginning. But it’s all window-dressing, that makes no tangible difference to the story. Like for f*ck’s sake, they didn’t even include 80s influences in the soundtrack! That’s one of the best things about the 80s! Instead we have Hans Zimmer phoning it in with a completely unmemorable score.

And how f*cking lazy do you have to be to use Adagio in D minor for one of the movie’s climactic moments? You know, that Mozart piece you’ve heard before in EVERY TRAILER EVER! But speaking of lazy, there are an intolerable amount of factual errors, historical anachronisms, continuity errors, and immersion-breaking production goofs.

Which individually wouldn’t amount to much, but the fact that they occur so often and so blatantly here speaks to a lack of care and attention to detail. They’re just the sprinkles atop this sh*t-filled donut. *Sigh* Look, I’ve rambled on for long enough, but you get the idea. Wonder Woman 1984 is terrible, and a perfect exercise in how NOT to write a movie. The more you try to unpack it, the worse it gets. I could have done into so much more detail but… I just didn’t have the patience. It’s boring, self-indulgent, nonsensical and an utter waste of everyone’s time.

And that’s why I’d say it’s the worst DC movie so far. Anyway, I’m off to drink myself into a coma so that I can forget that I ever saw it. Here’s a picture of Wonder Woman scissoring. Enjoy! "SHIT, DIANA! Thanks for watching folks. If you enjoyed it, give it a like, share and all that good stuff. If you want to support the channel, check out the sponsor Raycon, grab some merch from Bonfire, become a Patron on Patreon or a Channel member. Your support goes a long way, and Patrons and channel members get early access to uncensored articles without any ads, as well as a mention in the credits. Follow me on Twitter to stay up to date and join my public Discord server if wanna hang out. Thanks again folks, and I’ll see you in the next one...