Jenkins and Gadot did an admirable job with the first one, but they both lost a lot of cred here.
The story is an absolute mess, to the point that it’s hard to care about any of the characters. Pascal does his best, but his character… grants wishes? That what this whole movie revolves around? And it gets windy when he grants wishes? He never cares about his kid, but then all of a sudden he does and his character is redeemed? Diana can fly around like Superman now? How, through sheer will? I understand that she has special gifts and was inspired by her pilot boyfriend, but it doesn’t make sense. Steve is back, but in a different body? Does everyone else see him as Steve, or just Diana? Unfortunate that all of Pine’s charm from the first film is gone in this one. Wiig is proving to be a true chameleon of an actor, but what is her character all about? She’s a lovable nerd who all of a sudden grows a mean streak and has fantasies of world domination?
Effects are goofy, too. Some of Gadot’s acrobatics are fun, but the shots where she runs really fast look awful. Her feats of superhuman strength are inconsistent, going from crushing guns in her hand to having trouble with a lock to pushing armored trucks around to not being able to separate two trucks trying to squeeze her. How does Diana know the plane became invisible when it’s so visible from the inside?
And holy crap, it’s long. No reason to be when there’s so little story to tell.
The whole 80’s thing is self-indulgent, adding nothing to the story and seemingly in place for cheap nostalgia. It really felt like they had a local casting call for people with long hair, gave them all goofy outfits from the 80’s nostalgia store around the corner, put them into the background of scenes, and called it a day. While there was a cool 80’s tune in the trailer, there wasn’t even any real 80’s music in the film. They didn’t try very hard to make it authentic 80’s. I wonder if they made WW1984 because they call the sequel WW2.
It’s a sad commentary on Hollywood that so many people greenlit this movie as is. And an even sadder commentary that they quickly called this film a success and greenlit a third.
Neat seeing some familiar sites, as it was shot right around where I live.
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