Hayden Cole
Lantern Staff
7.5/ 10 Lanterns
In March 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 was supposed to be released in theatres. Unfortunately, COVID-19 happened, forcing many movies like it to push their release dates. Specifically, WW84, had changed its release date three times, until it found a home on the latest streaming service, HBO Max. Released on Christmas 2020, it made for a nice movie for the family to watch while they opened gifts and celebrate.
Overall, the film was good, but far from perfect. I found several effects in the movie to be “hokey” and outdated. In the film, many of the effects resemble that of Linda Carter’s Wonder Woman in the late 70s. With weak CGI animation and weird, underdeveloped lines, the dialogue sounded odd. My biggest beef with the movie is the design of Kristen Wiig’s character, Barbara, otherwise known as Cheetah. Cheetah was meant to look like a person with a few cat-like features, not a reject from the movie of the musical “Cats”.
The movie centers around a stone that grants wishes, but takes your most valued position. Referred to as the monkey’s paw, it takes as much as it gives. When Diana (Gal Gadot) wishes for her and her love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), to be together again, it weakens her and drains her powers the longer Steve, who died in the previous film and appears in someone else’s body, and her are together. While all this is happening Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) has wished to become the power stone and gains the ability to grant wishes. He uses this power to gain massive wealth and power by granting wishes to anyone and everyone, but finds his health deteriorating from the stress of granting the wish. Diana and Steve figure out that the only way to stop Maxwell Lord is to get everyone to renounce their wish. When everyone renounces their wish, the world goes back to normal.
Overall, the movie wasn’t bad. However, it doesn’t do anything groundbreaking or very special. It did NOT live up to the months of hype behind it, as well as live up to the glory of the original film. The story was ok, but lacked the exploration into why the wishes worked the way they did, which of the old gods created the stone and how Steve just took over someone else’s body. The callbacks to the style and events of the 80s were funny and nostalgic for those who lived through them.