Life is good but it can be better
Maxwell Lord(played by Pedro Pascal), says the above line multiple times in the film and this can be easily used to describe the film “WW84 was decent but it could have been so much more“
Wonder Woman 1984 was a highly anticipated sequel to the first Wonder Woman film and as is with most sequels, it fails to live up to the high expectations.
Was it a complete disaster? Not at all.
I found it enjoyable and had a great time sitting in a movie theater with this film for the first time since the pandemic hit and even though the plot was weak and inconsistent at times, on screen portrayal of Diana Prince was enough to keep me engaged. Gal Gadot has made the role of Wonder Woman her own and it’s incredibly hard for me to imagine anyone else portraying Diana on screen. Having said that, for me, it was Pedro Pascal who seemed to be having the most fun playing Maxwell Lord and was a delight to watch.
Kristin Wiig, as Barbara Minerva or Cheetah, does a fairly good job with what is given to her and if she were to return to this role in any of the future movies, I wouldn’t mind at all.
The film is set in the 80’s as the name suggests and this setting was supposed to be the strength of the film with the hopes of inducing nostalgia among the audience, however, the setting turned out to be its biggest weakness. The setting itself is not the problem, the problem rests with the tone of the film. You could easily confuse it with a superhero hero movie that came out in the 80’s. If I were to go one step ahead, I would compare it to a superhero movie made in Bollywood, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just something which feels out of place.
If you had seen the trailers, you were probably expecting an action packed superhero flick. This isn’t an action film. The best way to describe it would be a romance movie with superheros in it. The focus is not on Wonder Woman and her adventures but on Diana Prince and her life. Don’t get me wrong, the idea is great and we have seen that it worked amazingly in Spider Man 2, but the execution of the idea this time wasn’t that great.
Speaking of execution, I don’t know what’s going on with the VFX of the film. I can’t decide if the team who did the VFX was incompetent or if it was a creative choice to make the VFX deliberately look like it belonged to the 80’s. The big chase sequence which was supposed to be the “No Man’s Land” sequence for this one, comes nowhere close and it just was engaging enough.
Same could be said about the final battle between Diana and Cheetah. It was a lackluster affair and had no creativity. Having said that, it wasn’t all bad. The sequence that involved Diana and Steve in the invisible jet was simply beautiful
as was her first flight, especially when seen with the rousing score of Hans Zimmer.
I’ll say this, Wonder Woman 1984 is a film that came with high expectations but did not live up to those expectations, largely because of a weak and convoluted plot and shoddy special effects. But it’s not the worst superhero film to be put to screen. Far from it. It’s enjoyable and fun and a little cheesy. I, for one had a great time at the theaters and this I feel is one of those films which you can and will enjoy with a big screen,a great music system, friends and food.
Go out and see this one the biggest of screens, if the conditions permit.
Thanks to Akshit Gupta for this guest submission