Wonder Woman 1984

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Flack
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Wonder Woman 1984

Post by Flack »

I don't even know where to begin with this train wreck.

The first 11 minutes of the film take place in Wonder Woman Land (sorry, Themyscira), where a pre-teen Wonder Woman competes against adults in some sort of competition for women. Wonder Girl is far and away the best athlete and is winning until she falls off her horse. To rejoin her horse she is forced to take a shortcut, and is thus disqualified. Baby Wonder Woman cries as her mother says something about real heroes not being born from lies.

None of the skills that Diana displayed during the tournament -- javelin throwing, archery, horseback riding -- ever come back. Nothing that happens in the first eleven minutes has any impact on the film. It's there because it looks good, which is the running theme of the film. The camera lingers on scenery, backgrounds, and beautiful faces twice as long as it should, which explains why the film has a run time of just over 2 hours and 30 minutes, when it should have been 100 minutes, tops.

Wonder Woman 1984 takes place in 1984. They want you to know that so bad that they put the year in the title. The first modern scene takes place in a mall in 1984. On the way to the mall, a jogger is almost run over by what appears to be a brand new 1981 Trans Am. (Of course there were 1981 cars around in 1984, but why not sure a car that debuted in 1984, like the Fiero?) Moments later we are whisked inside the mall, where a show of the local arcade lingers too long on a bunch of kids playing Gauntlet (1985), Rampage (1986), and Operation Wolf (1987). Look, I don't want to Comic Book Guy "aaaaactually" this thing to death, so I'm glad they crammed a bunch of inconsistencies into the first few scenes so I could quit looking for them.

Things begin rolling when the museum takes possession of a a rock that, unbeknownst to them, grants people wishes. The rock is promptly stolen by failed businessman Maxwell Lord (played by an unmasked Pedro Pascal) who plans to use the rock to grant his own wish, but not before Diana can wish for her boyfriend to come back from the dead, and her nerdy coworker Barbara can wish to be more like Diana. Unfortunately for Wonder Woman, Lord finds a way around the ol' "you can't wish for more wishes" clause by wishing that he would become one with the rock. BOOM.

All of this would be fine if the movie got to the point, which it doesn't. Lord doesn't even steal the rock until the 45 minute mark, where most movies would already be deep into act 2. Every single scene or idea is so stretched out that you will be wishing to fast forward through the movie. There's a segment where Diana's boyfriend has been transported to 1984. (This isn't a spoiler, it's in the trailer.) For literally five minutes, Steve is amazed by 80s clothes, amazed by mass transit, amazed by an escalator, amazed by airplanes, amazed by trash cans... it just goes on, and on, and on. A few minutes later when the two of them make their escape in a jet plane, it's three minutes of them making small talk while looking out the window at fireworks. It would not be a chore to edit this movie down to 100 minutes. More than that, it would be a favor.

Eventually things get all punchy-kicky-shooty-lasso'ey and of course there's action, but the action scenes are few and far between everything else. How Disney managed to spend $300 million on a movie with Gal Godot in skimpy clothes and make it boring is nothing short of a miracle.

Oh, and Wonder Woman learns to fly because her boyfriend explained to her how planes work. That's... not how flying works. Understanding the principles of flight doesn't magically make your arms be able to provide lift. It's just... nnnnnngh. And yet somehow that makes more sense then the climax of the film, which essentially involves Wonkavision.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

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Jizaboz
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Re: Wonder Woman 1984

Post by Jizaboz »

Yeah something told me this would be messed up bad. Just make a certain era comic book movie! Original origin story of Green Lantern, this, or any of the classics with PROPER period clothing, slang, old super hero uniform and appearance, and objects. They do it for movies set way further back than the early 1950s pretty consistently so its not as if this concept is impossible.
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AArdvark
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Re: Wonder Woman 1984

Post by AArdvark »

Is this another attempt to get the Gen Xers into the theater, by making it an 80s movie, like Ready Player One and Pixels?

It's amusing that male crimefighters in comic book movies don body armor while female crimefighters get alluring sexy costumes with lots of bare skin. It's all about knowing the audience.

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