Score: 4.5 / 5
She's back, and not a moment too soon. After being pushed back several times during the pandemic Wonder Woman 1984 became the face of a controversial decision by Warner Brothers to release their feature films for the next year simultaneously in cinemas and digitally on HBO Max. Regardless of the financial repercussions and potential doom for movie theaters (dare we call them old-fashioned?!), I worry most that the streaming service will result in bad viewing experiences for folks at home, safe as they may be there. Case in point: WW84, which has apparently become cool to hate by audiences watching from home. Never mind that they are probably not giving the movie the undivided attention it deserves as they become distracted by talking, bathroom breaks, and cell phones. And, of course, never mind relegating Patty Jenkins's masterful follow-up to her 2017 introduction of the character to a small screen when it screams to be seen in IMAX.
We begin with the sort of prologue that often begins a hero's story, of young Diana competing against her much older Amazon peers on Themyscira. An exciting overview of the gauntlet leads into the child choosing to take a shortcut before approaching the finish. Antiope (Robin Wright) stops her, lecturing her that "no true hero is born from lies." It's the sort of on-the-nose lecture that might induce some eye-rolling at first, reminding us of comparable Disney movie morals. We then jump ahead -- past the first film's origin story -- into, well, 1984, as Diana works in D.C. as an anthropologist at the Smithsonian, moonlighting as a mysterious crime fighter. Because it's the '80s, Gal Gadot looks effing fabulous all the time, and quickly becomes the envy of her new co-worker, Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig doing scene-stealing brilliant work).
Her latest heist-foiling reveals a cache of stolen artifacts including one inscribed with Latin. Anyone who has ever seen a horror movie knows you should not read the Latin, but Diana is an expert in ancient Mediterranean cultures and languages, so she translates the message and inadvertently wishes for her love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), to return to her. Of course, the artifact is really the Dreamstone -- an item created by the "god of lies" or Duke of Deception as known in the DC comics, originally working for Ares -- which has, Diana later learns, caused the collapse of several now-extinct civilizations.
And grant wishes it does. Steve's spirit returns, taking over the body of an unsuspecting stranger before seeking out his long-lost love. Meanwhile, overlooked and ignored Barbara wishes to be like Diana, unwittingly also gaining her superhuman speed and strength. Failing businessman Max Lord (Pedro Pascal in his best performance to date) has been seeking the stone -- how he knows about it remains a mystery, but people crazed with desperation do tend to find what they seek, no? -- and seduces Barbara to gain access to it. The problem with the Dreamstone is that it gives, yes, but also takes. In exchange for getting her lover back, Diana's powers weaken. In exchange for becoming like Diana, Barbara starts to lose her humanity, evidenced most clearly in a chilling scene on the streets when she attacks a man who had previously attacked her.
At one point, Steve Trevor refers to the Dreamstone as a Monkey's Paw, referencing the famous W.W. Jacobs short story from 1902 (an apt reference for the WWI spy and pilot). That comparison is dubious at best, as the fictional paw doesn't take so much as ironically twist the wishes it grants. The Dreamstone indeed takes, and that seems to be a result of its design to destroy entire cultures. Nothing exemplifies the corruption at the heart of '80s materialism and the American Dream of capitalist success as Max Lord, who wishes to become the living embodiment of the Dreamstone. Any child on a playground who would use a single wish to ask for infinite wishes can relate. As the stone dissolves and gets absorbed into Max, it becomes more like a Pandora's Box than a monkey's paw, though it fittingly takes Max's bodily health. His body is not his own, you might say.
From this point to the climax, the film does flirt with incoherency between its focal points and numerous unseen plot developments as Max gets people to make wishes en masse, feeding their greed and ambition while causing unbelievable chaos to society. But it's a narrative choice I found fitting, given the dangerous and compromised central plot device. Speaking of which, Jenkins's screenplay does some truly remarkable things: even amidst her use of cliché and almost metafictional references to the superhero genre, making the film more than once appear to be an exceptionally beautiful comic book brought to vivid life, she surprises us with genuinely progressive storytelling. Take her MacGuffin, the Dreamstone itself, which disappears halfway through the movie into her primary villain who reveals the real problem is greed, not the magical ability to grant wishes. Take Barbara, the sort of villain who isn't, whose incredible development rivals that of Killmonger in Black Panther. Or Max himself, who in his final scenes becomes an equally complex and beautifully redeemed character. This is highly sophisticated superhero art, and even if some of the minor plot points don't make immediate sense, I trust that Jenkins and her team understand their own work better than I did after a single viewing.
That's not to say I liked this more than the original. Frankly, nothing compares with the No Man's Land sequence or Diana's infiltration of the German ball. The camaraderie of diverse soldiers that team up with Diana in that movie had some of the best chemistry between men in cinema that year, to say nothing of Lucy Davis as the pitch-perfect sidekick Etta Candy. But Ludendorff, Doctor Poison, and even Ares were laughably shallow villains compared to Max Lord and Cheetah. The brown and grayscale colorscape of World War I can't compare with the vivid beauty of '80s Washington (to say nothing of gorgeous excursions to Cairo and a climactic scene of riotous chaos on Pennsylvania Avenue). And Diana's own character development is intensely internal here; in the first, her black-and-white view of the world is shattered, but in this, the gray areas become a mess that she is forced to simply try and navigate rather than fix. Her learning of the cost of hope, ultimately, is something I found decidedly mature and unexpected as a storytelling choice.
In fact, I had only two problems with this new movie, significant enough to score lower than its predecessor. First, I couldn't take the scene of Diana flying. I mean, what is that? The same scene could have been achieved with her lassoing lightning bolts or just running faster than she ever has, without turning her into a bizarre Superman. Second, I really did not like Barbara's lack of dramatic closure. I trust that Jenkins or the studio have plans in a future installment to continue or rectify that, but for this movie's integrity I would have preferred some conclusion on that front.
But for a gorgeous movie to behold, a personal favorite superhero doing classic work, dazzling escapism and fantastic drama, and some shockingly timely thematic concerns that manifest in two of the best cinematic supervillains ever, Wonder Woman 1984 has solidified its place among my favorite genre movies. I can't wait for the next one.
P.S.: I was fortunate to visit the Watergate Hotel and Pennsylvania Avenue during a weekend in summer of 2018 as the film was shooting. We were allowed on the set to meet the crew and experience the making of "Magic Hour" as it was publicized. I could say a lot about the experience, but relevant to this review is that everything you see on screen during those sequences was real. There are no digital effects to add to the number of people, the period cars, the smoke or chaos. It was a fully practical scene, and the energy and passion exuded were infectious. Seeing it brought to dramatic life on screen -- especially Diana running straight down the street and into the sky -- brought tears to my eyes. That's the magic of movies.
