Wonder Woman 1984

Wonder Woman 1984 ⭐️⭐️

Director: Patty Jenkins Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig , Pedro Pascal

Everywhere I turn these days I seem to find reviews of “Wonder Woman 1984” all mentioning the same words: “great escapism” (as if that could be an excuse for what’s actually a bad film). I was really hoping that this could be not just a nice fun action romp, which would give me that much needed “escapism” and fill that void and satiate that blockbuster craving I’ve been having for the past year, but also something which would help advocating for the return to the big screen. Unfortunately I have to say I was not only very disappointed by this film, but also rather bored too. I thought it was a bloated (Sooo long!), messy, hammy and ultimately very silly sequel.

Of course, I’m aware this is a superhero movie and one should really hang any disbelief at the door when checking in, but I do have a problem when these types of films cannot even stick with their own rules. And so now Wonder Woman can fly ( yes I know this happened in comics too at some point, but still); here she seems indestructible (though from times a few punches did manage to knock her down, quite randomly when the script required her to be hurt). Now people can come back from the dead and anyone can wish for anything and it will magically happen. There’s point when it all gets just way too much and laves the film with nowhere else to go.

I have been an avid fan of superheroes forever and have seen more than I care to admit. I certainly have no problem with people in tights and silly costumes saving the world from whatever the latest evil mind is, using their super-powers. It’s the kind of silly mindless fun that Marvel does so well and DC keeps on messing up. But this film feels so chaotic and over the top that even with all the will in the world I just couldn’t take it anymore.Of course, some of the action is spectacular and the special effects are spotless, but those are all things we’ve come to expect from such a multi-million dollar “tentpoles”.

And yes of course Gal Gadot is beautiful and now embodies her character as a second skin, to perfection, but as soon as you look beyond that, you’ll soon see what a mess this film is and even those action scenes, however skilfully handled, felt really disconnected with each other almost as if they were filmed in isolation without even a script (“let’s shoot something and we’ll figure out how to connect it all later on”.In fact narratively it is all over the place and doesn’t add anything to the previous instalment in terms of world-building or character development. So much so that when Wonder Woman 3 comes out (As I am writing this news broke that a third film is being greenlight and fast-tracked by Warner Bros), you will be able to skip this one altogether and you would actually not have missed anything. Diana’s (aka wonder woman’s ) only defining characteristic seems to be her constant mourning the death of Chris Pine’s character (how many years later?!?!), which is how we left her at the end of the previous film.

The film tries to throws so many ideas in the mix (the cardinal sin of super-hero sequels, too many strands, too many baddies, too many storylines) in the hope that something will stick at some point. As long as it can please fans on the internet and give them enough hashtags to play with…

If this is the kind of film they were hoping could save “Cinema” for its post-covid demise, then we are in real trouble.