(MINOR SPOILERS)
I'll start this review by saying that if you haven't seen Wonder woman 1984 yet, go see it, and go see it in an actual movie theater, if one is open in your area.
That's not to say it's the best film ever (more in a couple of sentences) because it actually isn't. But you should go see it to get out of the house and to experience the big, boisterous thing that it is on the screen, and because you deserve to be around other people at this point.
Now that we've got that out of the way, let me tell you what I really think about this film.
As I said, it's big, and boisterous, and it's filled with lots of action, explosions, and drama. That's not to say it's a James Bond film. James Bond films are a lot more believable than this one, which is, after all, based on a comic book.
It involves fantasy, not reality. And silly fantasy, at that. That is abundantly clear when you consider how one of the characters from the previous Wonder Woman film (which was indeed wonderful!) is brought back to life in this film.
I won't ruin for you HOW Wonder Woman's man, Steve comes back after being killed off in the last movie, because it's central to the plot. But you might have heard about it already, and it's morally troubling once you think about the implications.
I was surprised to learn she's the same actress who played young Diana in the 2017 Wonder Woman movie as well. She has a bright future ahead of her. Director Patty Jenkins deftly weaves in elements of this early story later in the film.
The very end of the movie (post credits) also includes a wonderful scene that I will not spoil here, but the fact that I'm calling attention to the front and the back of this film being the most notable parts should say something about the center of the film. It's a hot mess in places!
But there was a lot to like here. From the trailers you can tell that it's quite nostalgic. And for someone who was in high school in 1984 like myself, it was a rather fun romp through that era.
While I would have liked to have heard a lot more music from the era in this film (which would have made me buy the soundtrack in a heartbeat) I enjoyed seeing the clothing, the styles and the cultural references like breakdancing that Jenkins brought to the screen.
Some have brought up anachronisms. like showing video on 1980s era computer screens (they lacked that capability) and the poster for a punk band on the wall was actually from a post 1984 concert, and in the south, not Washington DC.
A t-shirt shown in the film (the Cro-mags' "Age of Quarrel") allegedly came from a punk band's 1986 album by that name, but the shirt was actually given to Jenkins by the band's lead singer John Joseph, and he says it was actually recorded in 1984. Okay.
And while finding anachronisms is really fun - I nitpicked and found Back to the Future mistakes for 35 years, after all - we can't get bogged down in too much of that.
Pedro Pascal was at times well cast as businessman Maxwell Lord, but the performance and the way it was written was mostly over-the-top. I guess that was either an acting choice or a directing choice on the part of Jenkins, and we have to remember it was a comic book role, after all. But in many scenes, it was distractingly bad.
Still, I understood the character and in the end, and even emphasized with him, based on his epiphany.
Gal Gidot is excellent as Diana. Some found her performance a bit wooden, but I found her to be charming and mature in the role after two outings on the screen.
The actress portrayed Diana's adaptation to the 1980s beautifully. And she instructed Chris Pine's character quite efficiently.
MINOR SPOILERS HERE (Perhaps too efficiently, because the script has Pine's Steve Trevor - who is directly from World War I - calling a plane a jet, and then immediately flying it, without any training! It's things like this that stretch credulity beyond its breaking point. Yes, even in a film with an invisible jet!
But the character seemed to be a little "off" for some reason, a role certainly not well-developed in this film. When she played the mild-mannered Barbara Minerva, with her oversized glasses and awkward mannerisms, she was the most effective.
When she turned into Cheetah, the archenemy of Wonder Woman, I had trouble believing that the transformation was as quick as it was on screen. Again, I know this was probably covered over several comic books over many years, but it just didn't "click" onscreen here.
But again, overall this was a pretty good effort by Jenkins and the cast here. Go see it for the explosions, car chase, and fantasy. Ignore the anachronisms and over-the-top acting in places. It's worth a ticket in a real movie theater. Or, if you must, or have to, it's even worth the subscription to HBO Max.
