Wonder Woman 1984
Eric S Brown
The first Wonder Woman film blew viewers away with its action, as close as possible to the comics take on the Amazon warrior, and some powerful emotional scenes. Wonder Woman 1984 lacks the grandeur and action of the orignal in many ways but is still a worthy follow up to it. The sequel opens in the year of its title with Wonder Woman, Diana, doing her best to live a normal life while secretly fighting crime and saving those facing danger. Barbara Minerva begins work at the Smithsonian along side her. Feeling bad for Barbara, Diana quickly befriends her. They are working on discovering the identity of an artifact which turns out ot be the powerful Dreamstone, capable of granting any wish. . . for a price. Diana wishes Steve Trevor back into her life while Barbara wishes to be like Diana. But Maxwell Lord is after the stone and manages to obtain it setting into a motion a series of events which could destory the world.
Both Barbara, aka the Cheetah, and Maxwell Lord are somewhat different from the comic versions of themselves but nonetheless live up well enough to them on the big screen. Steve Trevor has some fun and humorous moments as a man awakened from the dead into the strange, future world of the 1980s.
Key things that hurt Wonder Woman 1984 and make it not as majestic as the original are its pacing, which can at times drag alone, and Diana’s waning powers. Many long time comic fans who saw the film’s trailers likely were curious as to why Wonder Woman had such a tough time battling a convoy of armored trucks when such a task shouldn’t even have given the goddess of war a real workout. The slow loss of her powers might add some degree of mortal drama but also greatly detracks from the power of the character that many viewers likely hoped to see on display.
All in all, Wonder Woman 1984 is a good and fun movie but very much one with some serious issues that keep the film from being everything it could have been.
