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When “ Wonder Woman ” came out in 2017, it was a thrilling breath of fresh air, both within the darker realm of DC Comics adaptations and the larger context of bloated summer blockbusters. Director Patty Jenkins ’ film offered equal parts muscle and heart, with a perfect tonal balance between transporting action and gentle humor, dazzling spectacle and charming romance. Crucially at its center was the impossibly charismatic Gal Gadot , who was more than just a gorgeous and statuesque stunner. She radiated goodness, light, and hope in a way that was infectious, that made you believe in the power of superheroes beyond facile platitudes about doing what’s right and protecting mankind.

Gadot remains a winning and winsome figure in “Wonder Woman 1984,” and she retains her authentic connection with the audience, but the machinery around her has grown larger and unwieldy. Maybe that was inevitable, the urge in crafting a sequel to make everything wilder and brasher, more sprawling and complicated. In the process, though, the quality that made the original film such a delight has been squashed almost entirely. And yet, the foundation of the script Jenkins co-wrote with Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham , based on William Moulton Marston ’s original characters, is a pretty simple one: It’s an indictment of greed, of our entitled desire to have what we want and have it now. The story takes place at the height of Reagan-era conspicuous consumption, hence the title, but the point “WW84” is making about the destructive nature of avarice is certainly relevant today.

Too often, though, the instinct in evoking that period is to wallow in obvious nostalgia—popped collars on pastel Polo shirts, a Centipede game at the arcade, a B. Dalton Bookseller at the brightly-lit, triple-decker mall. There’s even the obligatory trying-on-clothes montage to allow Chris Pine ’s resurrected World War I pilot to marvel at the ridiculousness of parachute pants. (Also: breakdancing! What is that all about?) We’ll get to Steve in minute, and to the potentially intriguing idea his return represents.

But what’s also disappointing about the “WW84” screenplay is that it feels like it belongs to a movie that actually came out in the ‘80s. Its plot-driving device would be right at home in a high-concept comedy: an ancient stone that immediately grants you whatever you wish for, resulting in both wacky hijinks and massive catastrophes. It’s a banal notion along the lines of “ Weird Science ” and “Zapped!,” a cautionary tale in which fantasy fulfillment ultimately doesn’t deliver the satisfaction its characters expect.

Far more compelling is the film’s opening sequence, a flashback to a pivotal moment in the life of young Diana, years before she’d become Wonder Woman. As a girl on the magical island of Themiscyra (played once again by the poised and perfectly cast Lilly Aspell ), she competes in an arduous challenge of strength and skill against women twice her age and height. This whole section soars—the camerawork and editing put us right in the middle of the action, and Hans Zimmer ’s score sweeps us along. The memory also efficiently establishes Diana’s fearlessness and ability as well as the important lesson she learns about the nature of truth that will become relevant down the road. It is the film’s high point; nothing else will match it in terms of visual cohesion or emotional impact.

Flash forward to 1984. Diana Prince is now living in Washington D.C. (at The Watergate, amusingly) and working as an archaeologist at the Smithsonian, using her expertise and language skills to study ancient artifacts. Being ageless makes her a glamorous and elegant but lonely figure. (Costume designer Lindy Hemming plays off Gadot’s height and her character’s heritage by placing her in regal, drapey outfits that emphasize her length.) We see Diana sitting alone at a table at an outdoor cafe, smiling at passers-by, yearning to make a connection. It’s the film’s most quietly moving moment.

So when mousey new co-worker Dr. Barbara Minerva arrives and meekly asks if she’d like to have lunch, Diana doesn’t quite know how to respond because she doesn’t really have friends. But the two soon hit it off, because Barbara is also a misfit in her own way. Kristen Wiig is subtly hilarious in these early scenes as the sweetly goofy, warmhearted researcher. The chemistry she and Gadot share when they meet for drinks at happy hour, the Washington Monument gleaming behind them in the distance, made me wish they were starring in a mismatched buddy comedy instead. The role allows Wiig to deliver her lines with the sly, self-deprecating deadpan that’s her trademark; it seems effortless but actually requires pinpoint precision. But watching her stretch and develop into a villainous figure as the film progresses has its own joys. It’s a huge change of pace for the comedian, and she rises to the occasion both physically and emotionally.

You see, Barbara gets her hands on a mysterious stone that comes into the lab, which she and Diana determine is the kind that grants one wish to the bearer. Diana wishes she could once again be with her love, Pine’s Steve Trevor, now deceased for seven decades. Barbara wishes she could be more like Diana: confident, strong, sexy. But then—get this—a whole ‘nother person enters the lab under the guise of being a benefactor, when he actually wants the stone for his own nefarious purposes. He’s Pedro Pascal as fluffy-haired TV con man Maxwell Lord, a fake oil tycoon promising prosperity to the masses. Crafting a wealthy façade and living beyond his means, Maxwell Lord is an archetype of the era. But beyond his shameless hunger for power and respect, there isn’t much to this character, and Pascal’s portrayal grows increasingly cartoonish. A sensitive performer, he’s afforded the opportunity to show more range beneath his Beskar steel helmet and armor on “The Mandalorian.”

The bulk of the overlong “WW84” running time is devoted to the chaos that ensues when wish fulfillment runs amok. The script meanders awkwardly between all three of these characters as they either explore their newfound powers or the consequences of their choices. Along the way, the rules for wishing on the stone keep changing in whatever way is convenient to keep the plot chugging along. But some genuinely thrilling moments emerge along to the way to the generically shiny, noisy climax, including a heart-pounding chase across the Egyptian desert that allows Diana to reveal both her resourcefulness and her kindness. And Barbara’s transformation from unassuming scientist to ass-kicking seductress is a pleasure to behold, mainly because the evolution of her clothes and hair are so great and she seems to be having the most fun of anyone on screen. (The same cannot be said for Gadot and Pine this time, whose connection is weirdly inert despite the potential poignancy of being reunited with your one true love.) Sure, Barbara eventually turns into the comic book villainess Cheetah and resembles a refugee from “ Cats ,” but until then, her arc is the most interesting element of the film.

At the end of this Dumpster fire of a year, though, “Wonder Woman 1984” does deliver a welcome escape, as well as a much-needed message of hope. We’ll take such diversions where we can get them these days, either spread out at a theater or from the safety of your couch at home. It’s fine. Sometimes, it even soars. But it could have been wondrous.

Available on HBO Max and in theaters on December 25.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence.

151 minutes

Gal Gadot as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman

Chris Pine as Steve Trevor

Kristen Wiig as Barbara Ann Minerva / Cheetah

Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord

Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta

Robin Wright as Antiope

Patty Jenkins

Writer (based on characters from DC Wonder Woman created by)

William Moulton Marston

Writer (story by)

Geoff Johns
Dave Callaham

Cinematographer

Matthew Jensen
Richard Pearson
Hans Zimmer

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Wonder Woman 1984 Reviews

It is certainly one of the weakest from the DCEU in the past two years after the recent solid run they have had.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Mar 1, 2024

Gal Gadot continues to prove that she's one of the best casting choices of the millennium, interpreting Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman. I seriously cannot imagine another actress incorporating the character's essence as seamlessly as her.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 24, 2023

It was a fun throwback to some of the sillier DC films of the 90s.

Full Review | Jun 16, 2023

While it did have its problems, and while it may have had a different version of Wonder Woman that people may be used to from the first film, it was well made, and there's a lot to like about it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 6, 2023

A terrible fiasco that can't rise from beneath even with the female empowerment that it seeks to reflect. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jan 4, 2023

In each clumsy chapter, the film chooses the easy way ignoring development and transformation, and instead, throwing up Manichaeisms to avoid depth... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 19, 2022

Wonder Woman 1984 is the bombastic, big-hearted blockbuster we need after the terrors of 2020, even if it can’t quite surpass its subversive predecessor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

I still think Gal Gadot is some of the best casting in the entire superhero genre. She carries the movie with an effortless grace. It’s some of the moving parts and the shaky structure around her that unavoidably leaves this feeling like a letdown.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2022

The whole endeavor feels like a movie by committee that betrays the promise of the first film.

Full Review | Aug 17, 2022

Wonder Woman 1984 has its heart in the right place but wastes its promising setups in a problematic sequel.

There are moments of Patty Jenkins' superhero sequel that are perfect, much of it is clever and fun, but its final moments feel like the screenwriters let their idea get away from them and they just emptied the kitchen junk drawer right into the plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2022

"I definitely need more action and I think the action in the beginning with Young Diana was so good. But overall I definitely think it has those Wonder Woman lessons that we all enjoy about the character in general."

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 2, 2022

Wonder Woman 1984 is a step above most DC Universe films, but shares its habit of having too many ideas thrown at the screen at once. Best enjoyed as a light piece of wish fulfilment for a world that could do with saving..

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 28, 2022

This is not only an incredibly fun film that is easy to engage with and have fun with, but it is a film with real weight and purpose.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2022

While Wonder Woman 1984 has its flaws, it does not take away from how entertaining it was.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 18, 2022

Wonder Woman 1984 takes too long to come together and doesn't feel satisfying when it finally does.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 17, 2022

This is the case for Wonder Woman 1984, a film that has clearly lofty aims, but which cannot get out of the way of its own excess.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 12, 2022

There's so much wrong with the film that it's genuinely hard to quantify.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2021

Ultimately, Wonder Woman 1984 will leave you confused, annoyed and wishing you could get that time back.

Full Review | Sep 25, 2021

Good goddess, what a mess.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2021

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‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Review: It’s Not About What We Deserve

The sequel to the 2017 hit finds Diana Prince, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, pining for love and saddled with a movie unworthy of her.

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‘Wonder Woman 1984’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Patty jenkins narrates a sequence from her film..

”I‘m Patty Jenkins. I am the director of Wonder Woman 1984.” ”We need the police here right now!” So this is a scene which we had so much fun doing. It is the first scene in the film that happens to take place in current day. The only thing we‘ve seen leading up to this is a flashback. And the first scene where we see Wonder Woman as an adult in our film. ”What are you doing?” What was most important to me about this scene, was when I thought about what we were going to do with the second film, I realized we wanted to say something much more serious and kind of important than we did with the first film. So the immediate thing is, how do you do that and reach the audience that is most important to reach with that kind of message? Which is the youth audience. It‘s the heroes of tomorrow you‘re trying to inspire. So we immediately wanted to have a fun and engaging playful scene, which I‘m very excited to be with kids and watch them watch this scene. In addition, I was craving seeing Wonder Woman at the height of her powers and having a good time, saving the day with no stakes. It‘s something that I love in so many superhero films. ”We won‘t be doing that today.” Where they‘re just on top of the world and you‘re watching them take care of everything. Another thing was, the ’80s of it all. Lynda Carter‘s Wonder Woman was such a huge moment for Wonder Woman and her history in the world, and huge to me, because that‘s what I grew up watching. So getting to play with that version of Wonder Woman, which was something we hadn‘t gotten to touch on yet in the first film, was something that I realized I wanted to do right up front, because our story would not allow for her to have much more of that, because I always end up engaged with the main character‘s point of view. So of course, she goes into struggles immediately and doesn‘t get to just let loose and have fun. So that was a great thing to get into ala the ’80s of it all, but also employing new technology. All of these things, including this shot right here of these human bodies slamming, and Wonder Woman jumping over the barrier and flying through the air. 100% real, not one digi double, not one special effect to make that happen. That was all wire work that we were able to design and engineer to get every single move there, because no one‘s ever tried to do something like this in a real location. And so that was an incredible challenge, great artisans and my amazing second unit director, Dan Bradley, my amazing stunt coordinator, Rob Inch. We just had incredible people working on this and making these magical things happen. And my cast here, of course, you know, made it a pure delight. [SIRENS]

By Manohla Dargis

When Wonder Woman first hit the big screen in 2017, the possibilities for the character felt endless. After 76 years without a blockbuster to call her own — she muscled into comics, bracelets flashing, in 1941 — she had made it, becoming a box-office sensation. And, yay! The movies love sexpot vixens vamping in fetish wear (meow) and nice girls simpering in the wings, so it was relief that this Wonder Woman was neither. She was sovereign, powerful and lightly charming, and even when the movie had teasing fun with her it took the character, her mighty sword and cultural significance seriously.

The first movie is set largely during World War I, which set a lofty bar for the scope and the import of future adventures. The sequel’s title, “Wonder Woman 1984,” suggests that some juicy Orwellian intrigues are in the offing. Will Wonder Woman, a.k.a. Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), hijack a Soviet cruise missile, toss jelly beans at Ronald Reagan? As it turns out, the year mostly proves an excuse to pile on side ponytails, fanny packs and nostalgic nods to the kind of Hollywood blowouts that feature cartoonish violence and hard-bodied macho types. What is Wonder Woman doing in these campy, recycled digs? Who knows? Clearly not the filmmakers.

Patty Jenkins is behind the camera again, but this time without the confidence. Certainly some of the problems can be pinned on the uninterestingly janky script, a mess of goofy jokes, storytelling clichés and dubious politics. (It was written by Jenkins, Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham.) There’s a mystical artifact; an evildoer seeking world domination (bonus: he’s a bad dad); and one of those comic-book wallflowers who morphs into a sexy supervillain — you know, the usual. It’s a whole lot of unoriginality, but the used parts aren’t what sink “Wonder Woman 1984.” Familiarity, after all, is one of the foundations (and pleasures) of cinematic genres and franchises.

What matters is how awkwardly these elements — the heroes and villains, the jokes and action sequences — are put together. For starters, as is the case with many contemporary pictures, this one starts better than it finishes. (It plays like an elevator pitch, all setup without the delivery.) It opens with a leisurely flashback to Diana’s princess childhood during some kind of Amazonian Olympics, with aerial gymnastics and tight, muscular thighs astride thundering horses. This gambol down memory lane may have been necessary for viewers who didn’t see the first movie. But in the context of the rest of this movie, it vibes like a one-hit band opening with its sole claim to fame.

Eventually, the movie gets down to its 1984 business, and the pace drifts into lethargy. The story packs in a lot of stuff and characters but without purpose or urgency. (It could have used more of the distinctive electric cello that helped juice the first movie’s action, giving it a signature hook.) Kristen Wiig has some fun as the wallflower, but Pedro Pascal is badly misused as the villain du jour. Wonder Woman’s great love, Steve (Chris Pine), inexplicably materializes too, kind of like Patrick Swayze in “Ghost,” though the details remain fuzzy. Pine gives the movie heart (and oomph), as well as emotional expressivity, which is necessary given Gadot’s narrow range.

In her debut super-outing, Gadot was the wobbly axis in a movie that ran smoothly sometimes despite her. She was convincing and also charming because the character was too, as well as fierce and unworldly. That Diana was also a hawk, which comes with the mythological territory, though the story gave her a justification in the form of an adversary, Ares the god of war. We must stop him, she told the ruler of the Amazons, a.k.a. Mom. It “is our foreordinance,” Diana insisted, embracing the interventionist faith that has long defined American cinema. But by the time she’s powering through the Middle East in the sequel, that ideological creed just looks like an assertion of power.

Although there’s no official war in “1984,” Jenkins et al. need to stir up trouble, an obligation that results in scenes that feel like busywork. The movie oscillates between hand-to-hand (and hand-to-paw) combat and large-scale choreographed mayhem with flying bodies, trucks and whatnot whirling in a shopping center and elsewhere. During one fight, Wonder Woman pauses to voice some anti-gun rhetoric, a disingenuous declaration given all the guns and ammo in the two movies. As before, in the best moments Jenkins brings the camera low so you can admire how Wonder Woman slides and sweeps across the ground, her long legs mowing down the opposition.

In the end, this movie never makes the case for why Wonder Woman is back in action beyond the obvious commercial imperatives. It’s a given that franchises are produced to make bank, etc., but the best chapters have life, personality, a reason for being and for fighting. They expand on their characters’ mythologies, using the past to explore the present. Three years ago, Wonder Woman emerged amid a reckoning on male abuse and power; the timing was coincidental, but it also made the character feel meaningful. In 2017, when Wonder Woman was done saving the world, her horizons seemed limitless. I didn’t expect that her next big adult battle would be at the mall.

Wonder Woman 1984 Rated PG-13 for comic-book violence. Running time: 2 hours 31 minutes. Watch on HBO Max.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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‘Wonder Woman 1984’: A Superhero Takes on Greed, Misogyny, Shoulder Pads

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

The opening scene of Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman 1984 is a lesson: Shortcuts to greatness, cheating at the expense of others, will get you nowhere. It’s all a lose-lose. Which is a solid enough lesson for Diana Prince — a child, in this moment, still living on the women-run archipelago of Themyscira — to learn before she becomes Our Goddess and Savior Wonder Woman. But look at the way she learns it. She gets a little cocky during a competition, gets knocked off her horse, and finds a clever way to get back into the game. You might expect the prevailing lesson to be one extolling the values of quick thinking and using your wits. Instead, she’s reprimanded: Get ahead using the straight path — the right path, the harder path — or, morally, you’ll always be behind. The evil that eventually crops up in WW84 makes the value of this lesson a bit clearer … when applied to other people. But what’s the hard road for a demigod, really? The odds are always in their favor. Make them humane, sure, otherwise the rest of us are toast. But why rein in their creativity, their wit?

In fact: Why rein Wonder Woman in at all? Wonder Woman 1984 is, in so many ways, a more ambitious, expansive movie than its predecessor, tackling more in the way of dramatic chaos, big feelings, and convoluted archaeological villainy. But Diana Prince herself, as resumed by Gal Gadot , feels a little less complicated, her personality even more razor-focused, more straightforwardly virtuous, than before. It makes all the excitement that arises in the movie’s button-busting two-and-half-hour runtime feel somehow narrow, too, even as the premise expands. A cursed ancient object, a megalomanic named Maxwell Lord (an intentionally unappealing Pedro Pascal ), an insecure and oft-harassed geologist, Barbara Minerva (a fun Kristen Wiig ), a blast from the past … these are how the movie expands. And in the same moments, Diana herself seems to contract.

Let’s skip the plot specifics for now. Wonder Woman 1984 is a better made and more interesting movie than its predecessor, in the way that a superhero sequel ought to be: Now that we’ve gotten the origin out of the way, let’s get to business. You know the climactic fight is coming (the first movie’s remains an endearing but inarguable mess, as any action scene featuring David Thewlis probably ought); you know there will be other fights along the way to keep the audience’s asses glued in place. Jenkins’ Wonder Woman movies feel more interested in the little grace notes of Diana’s personality. The trouble with the new movie is that it suffers for having fewer of them, or rather, few new ones. The action in these movies has clear appeal. But Jenkins’ interest in Wonder Woman the woman has always felt more essential. The fights, for example, are less memorable for the particulars of combat (a longstanding superhero movie problem) than for Gadot’s truly enviable ability to live up to the heightened iconography, the hear me roar ethos of it all. Looking good during a fight: It’s the kind of thing only a star can do, really. We will probably always associate this franchise with that slow-motion battle charge through the wreckage of world war, which gets a callback in the latest movie. The image works well enough that even the hideously goofy, but still somehow catchy, theme music can’t totally dull the awe.

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It’s the solid, goofy action-movie stuff that makes the superheroism of these movies good, when it’s good. Even the burden of representation can’t weigh that stuff down. It all gives off the impression that this is a woman who knows that all eyes are on her, that these battles aren’t just plot points or excuses to blow things up or beat guys up, but rather a chance to flex Gadot’s genuine star quality. That all kind of collapsed in the muddle of the first movie’s climax. But nothing in that movie’s hellish Third Act fight is as memorable as Diana eating ice cream for the first time, or seeing a man for the first time. The sequel has less of that, for better or worse. The story’s already gotten most of that out of the way — romantic subplot, which I won’t spoil, notwithstanding. If anything, WW84 stands out for how slow everyone is to realize the true nature of the villain they’re facing — that is, the double-edged promise of the monkey’s paw at the movie’s center (which will, again, not be spoiled). It’s a meatier movie, in that way. There’s more to grab hold of, worthwhile and not.

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The Wonder Woman envisioned by Jenkins and Gadot is, of course, intent on saving the world, but — contra the godly Superman, who in recent iterations would need to be as strong as he is to keep propping up that hefty chip on his shoulder — she doesn’t seem all so hung up on it. Being in love with a dead hero-pilot does that to you. Diana Prince, not Clark Kent, is the “actual” demigod among us. But the fun irony of the first movie was that she wasn’t any less alien than he is, being, in part, that she’s an immortal who grew up in a place where women rule the world. The first Wonder Woman played this up as humorous naiveté. The Diana of the sequel, meanwhile, brushes off an overly flirtatious co-worker with the brusque efficiency of a woman who’s not doing this for the first time. She’s seen a few things over the years — just not her beloved Steve.

A movie set in the 1980s, at this stage of the nostalgic-content game, would tend to overcommit to the bit, mostly for the audience’s sake: retro costume shenanigans, conspicuous needle drops, grab-bag references to Spielberg and other pop-culture royals of the era, all of them feel-good allusions (or outright borrowings) that make us feel all the better for basking in our collective love of Gen X’s taste in pop. Wonder Woman 1984 doesn’t skimp on the costume fun; the expected gags, to that effect, sneak their way into the movie (Diana being the exception; leave it to an immortal to look timeless in any era).

But the more-intensive connection to the era that we get in WW84 is, to at least my surprise, world-political. The thinkpieces to come will undoubtedly tell us how political — and how to feel about it. The movie’s villain is an oil man, or rather, that’s what he desperately wants to be. The Eighties were the era of the “oil glut,” as an exclamatory New York Times article once put it. Which means that our man Maxwell Lord is trying to make it as an oil man at a time everyone already has. Also, he doesn’t seem especially good at it. He’s a television personality with a man-baby pathetic streak and a snake-oil-salesman unctuousness — so someone’s going to compare him to Trump. That specific connection, which is only so compelling, matters less than the overall strangeness of the film’s detour to the Middle East, and some of the battles and troubled histories it evokes while there. This, among other things, makes WW84 a weird movie, even if you think it’s a good one — and only, probably, when you stop to actually think about it.

Obviously we’re not meant to stop and think; it all keeps hurdling forward. If the characters have any particular feeling about the conflicts stirred up in Cairo or any of the mess that comes with it, they don’t say so. The real-world shit it dredges up in this regard is … not mere backdrop, but of such little real consequence to the characters involved that it’s fair to wonder why the movie even bothered. A claim to ancestral land has been made; a gauntlet has been thrown. Can’t we at least talk about it? No? OK, then. What matters most is the nuclear war it all eventually beckons forth. Nukes are universal: We can all relate to them scaring us shitless. The rest — the heaping pile of troubling specifics — is noise.

Wonder Woman 1984 is solid where it counts, maudlin in the way its fans need it to be, and, similarly, just funny enough to be charming. For all that goes unsaid, the writing is even occasionally clever. The central conceit of all the villainy here at times comes off as a dark riff on entrepreneurial self-help-y logic in its most bastard state, as if we were watching The Power of Positive Thinking (which gets named outright) headbutt the logic of “Power corrupts… ” for an entire movie. Nowhere is this more striking than in the fate of Wiig’s Minerva, an overqualified professional who’s ignored for the wrong reasons — until she gets attention for the wrong reasons. And it gets to her head for reasons that are, all in all, understandable, actually. This is where the movie lands its handful of provocative punches. As for the rest, it doesn’t always add up, the acting isn’t always great, the climax overreaches a little. Courtesy of the stars, and of the filmmaker’s clear affection for her subject, there’s a little more soul here than there had to be, thankfully. That’s not everything. It’s also not nothing.

Wonder Woman 1984 will stream on HBO Max on December 25th.

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Wonder Woman 1984 is the massive movie we've been waiting for: Review

We all expected to see Wonder Woman 1984 months ago. Like so many things this year, however, that did not go according to plan, as the film went from a splashy summer blockbuster (itself already a postponement ) to glamorous fall event-movie. Then that also proved too optimistic for the cruel hellscape that has been 2020, which can perhaps best be summed up as the year we were denied Gal Gadot ’s Diana Prince in favor of Gal Gadot’s “Imagine.” For those of you unfamiliar: That’s a downgrade .

But now the mega-hyped superhero(ine) sequel, helmed again by 2017’s Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins , is here at last, landing in select theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously on Christmas Day. And how appropriate! Who better to swoop in and remind us of the thrill and possibility of movies, to offer us hope right here on the precipice of a much newer New Year than most, than Wonder Woman herself? That may sound like an unfair demand of a film that was finished before 2020 began, intended for a traditional release in a traditional year. But if any movie is up for the task of taking on more , this would be the one.

WW84 is enormous. It’s huge from the start, opening with a flashback to a sort of Amazonian Olympics on Themyscira, where child Diana competes with women twice her age in an obstacle course that feels like a workout just to watch — but that’s only the prologue. From there, the film travels to a place that’s even bigger, even louder, even more, more , more than a fictional magical far-off land filled with gorgeous, superhuman warrior women. That’s right! It’s the U.S. of A. in the year 1984!

Diana Prince (a.k.a. Wonder Woman) is living in Washington, D.C., where she works at the Smithsonian and spends her immortal life in quiet loneliness. She does make one friend early in the film — her colleague, Barbara Minerva ( Kristen Wiig , brilliantly cast), a sweet but awkward gemologist who admires Diana’s glamour and poise, so often does she herself trip over her low heels and go unnoticed by everyone around her.

The Smithsonian is home to many treasures, one of which brings oil entrepreneur Maxwell Lord ( Pedro Pascal ), a boxy-suited Ponzi-schemer slicker than the product he peddles, into Diana and Barbara’s orbit. Known for his cheesy infomercials, in which he promises potential investors “everything you’ve always wanted,” he turns on that TV-salesman charm to win over Barbara — another person desperate for so much more than she has.

As long as we’re talking romantic pairings, there is, of course, one other: I won’t betray how Chris Pine ’s Steve Trevor, who died in Wonder Woman , returns decades later in 1984 — but thank God he does. His and Diana’s relationship is the beating heart of WW84 , not at all tacked on but completely essential, and Pine remains perfect in the part, his confidence and humor making him a match even for his super-girlfriend. The pair’s roles from the first film are switched, with Diana now showing Steve around a world unlike anything he’s ever seen, and in another clever reversal, WW84’s makeover montage (what’s an ‘80s movie without a little fashion show?) is in fact for him, rather hilariously trying on the horrific styles of the day.

Jenkins goes all-in on the ‘80s, a decade that was very all-in on itself. The bright, shiny production is deeply attentive to that sense of time and place, which is especially satisfying in a genre that can often feel vague in that regard (Jenkins’ previous film being a notable exception). That’s not only in the detail of the scene but in the tone of the film itself; the period proves a strangely apt lens through which to view Diana, whose unflappable earnestness can never fully avoid registering as slightly cheesy, but it goes down easier coming from an ‘80s flick (or a fake one, anyway). The film does well, too, playing with the conflict between contemporary values and the philosophies of our virtuous heroine, who represents truth in a superficial world and knows she must choose selflessness even when the culture preaches greed. It’s an inspired setting — it does all the work.

It takes some time to get to the major action set pieces (other than the prologue, which is gorgeous), but it’s too much of a pleasure to live in this well-realized place, populated by a quartet of capable and charismatic stars, to really care. Once the action does ramp up, though, the cracks begin to show under the weight of the massive movie. At a certain point, the film goes from saying something true about human nature and American life to devolving into a largely empty spectacle. The great cosmic drama grows so narratively unwieldy that the excellent work that came before, grounding this superpowered story in something like reality, comes a little undone. (An outlandish appearance from a nameless POTUS is particularly jarring, considering we all know who the president was in 1984 and how strongly he's associated with the capitalist ethos that this movie questions.)

Not unlike its predecessor, this film’s finale is overwrought, its stakes overdrawn — even though, maddeningly, they really don’t need to be when the essential conflict is so clear and compelling. Perhaps inevitably, Jenkins herself did not prove immune to the excess that she spent her ambitious 150-minute-long movie denouncing; that runtime alone is more than a little self-indulgent. But hey, if this year has taught us anything, it’s to give each other a break — and to allow ourselves our indulgences. Maybe Wonder Woman will be the one to save us, after all. Grade: B

Trailer courtesy of Warner Bros.

Wonder Woman 1984 saves the '80s in one of the best superhero sequels ever

The sequel to the 2017 superhero hit Wonder Woman champions hope and love in the face of annihilation.

Like a true superhero, Wonder Woman 1984 swoops in at just the right moment when we need saving most.

It might be set in the ‘80s, but the Patty Jenkins sequel takes aim at the present day. There’s a profound dread underlining Wonder Woman 1984 that’s only defeated by truth, love, and selflessness in the face of annihilation. Top that off with exciting action you get to rewatch immediately on HBO Max, and Wonder Woman 1984 is easily DC’s best superhero movie since The Dark Knight .

Hitting theaters and streaming on HBO Max on Christmas Day, Wonder Woman 1984 is the newest entry in the DC "Extended Universe." Decades after Diana/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) left her mystical home for the trenches of World War I, Diana lives a socially reclusive life as a museum curator in Washington D.C. She bumps into a new hire, Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a gawky archaeologist who develops a girl-crush on Diana.

As the two grow close, the museum unearths a mysterious "Dreamstone," an ancient rock said to grant a wish to those who touch it. They brush it off as nonsense until its powers are proven real by the return of Diana's lost lover, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), and by Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), an oil tycoon whose TV smile masks a crumbling empire. But because wishes come at a grave cost, Maxwell uses the Dreamstone to pave himself an easy path to the ear of the president — and unwittingly kicks off nuclear Armageddon.

In 'Wonder Woman 1984', Gal Gadot returns to the DC Universe as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.

Fun and fulfilling in equal measure, Wonder Woman 1984 is a triumph of 21st-century superhero movies. It builds upon and strengthens the generation-defining heroism of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, challenging her amidst a changing world that ceases to make sense. The World War I in 2017's Wonder Woman was a physical trial-by-fire for the Amazonian; its most iconic visual remains Wonder Woman charging into No Man’s Land. But Wonder Woman 1984 is a more existential ordeal, which is not only appropriate for the Cold War era but a novel twist for a superhero sequel. How does Wonder Woman’s ideals of peace and anti-war stack up when there are no frontlines to speak of?

To be clear, there’s plenty of superhero action. The movie’s opening of a shopping mall rescue and an Act 2 brawl inside the White House are highlights. And there’s a formidable adversary in Cheetah, the end result of Barbara’s turn from geek to villain chic. Kristen Wiig is fierce as Barbara as she exercises a depth and dimension her comedic roles rarely allow. And how Barbara becomes a half-human, half-wildcat predator is deliciously thrilling.

(Her climactic fight scene is less so, a poorly lit clash made worse by an over-reliance of lightweight anime physics that calls to mind the DCEU’s worst offerings, like Man of Steel .)

Except for the final fight, the action in 'Wonder Woman 1984' booms with thunderous impact and weight.

But in my head, Wonder Woman 1984 isn’t a beat ‘em up action movie, even if it does action better than most movies. It is first and foremost a character drama, where Wonder Woman asks big questions about herself, her wishes, and her place in a strange world. On the surface, she is a beautiful enigma with James Bond's ferocity. (Observe her navigate a crowded party with pinpoint focus.) But inside, Diana is just as scared and lonely as us mortal dweebs. She too likes to dream about the impossible while gazing at airplanes in the night sky.

If Diana is an inward character, her opposing force is the outward Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord, an antagonist who bleeds emotions through his orifices. With a bad blonde haircut and a con man’s breathlessness, Pascal is an acting heavyweight who is more than just a DCEU Donald Trump (though the two have a similar taste in gaudy faux gold). Unlike the lame-duck president of the United States, there is an ocean’s worth of dimension in Maxwell Lord. His quest for fame and fortune comes from misplaced insecurity as he desperately yearns for the earned affection of his estranged son, not mere sociopathy. It’s hard to imagine the president going to the same lengths as Maxwell for people like Eric or Don Jr.

Pedro Pascal stars in 'Wonder Woman 1984' as the villainous Maxwell Lord.

Underlining everything and everyone in Wonder Woman 1984 is its time and place. While the 1980s of the DCEU is a bit polished and plastic, and lacks lived-in texture (it’s more Stranger Things than Joker ), the movie nails Cold War paranoia on its super-heroic terms. Wonder Woman 1984 knows how to anchor a story about hope and love in a chaotic time. If you’ve spent this year feeling a crushing spiritual defeat you can’t find the words for, Wonder Woman 1984 — a movie that champions perseverance, patience, kindness, truth, and, most of all, love — is one of the most entertaining ways to learn the language.

Time will tell if Wonder Woman 1984 will be as seismic as other DC movies like Superman or The Dark Knight . For now, Patty Jenkins’ second superhero movie is simply a top-notch product with an enviable cast as it cements Wonder Woman as the true hero for our times. Hopefully, her awe-inspiring heroism, warmth for humankind, and winking sense of humor are enough to armor anyone through the difficult days ahead.

Wonder Woman 1984 opens in theaters and streams on HBO Max on December 25.

Superheroes
Science Fiction

Wonder Woman 1984 Review

16 Dec 2020

Wonder Woman 1984

For the first time in about two decades, 2020 has been a year without a single major planet-rescuing superhero on the big screen. ( Birds Of Prey arguably qualifies, though Harley Quinn was more concerned with saving an egg sandwich than saving the world.) After years of box-office dominance, the one thing DC and Marvel’s greatest heroes weren’t prepared for was a pandemic. But as the year closes, one comic-book blockbuster has defied the odds to make it to the big screen and rescue 2020 from total misery: Wonder Woman 1984 .

It’s fitting that Diana Prince is the one to swoop in and save the day — after all, she was the original bright new hope of the DC Extended Universe, once so mired in morally murky seriousness (and visually murky set-pieces). Patty Jenkins ’ 2017 film pierced the grimdark pomposity of Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman in an outing that dared to embrace the inherent goodness of its central hero, a sincerity that shone through both in its super-powered set-pieces, and in the budding romance between Gal Gadot ’s Amazonian warrior-goddess Diana and Chris Pine ’s human (but superhumanly handsome) World War I pilot Steve Trevor. It’s clear that Jenkins feels even more empowered this time around to hold firm to Wonder Woman’s intrinsic ethos: that she is a bastion of truth and honesty, whose physical strength is complemented by the warmth, love and generosity that she radiates. Jenkins’ belief in and understanding of Diana’s true power is written right into the DNA of Wonder Woman 1984 , shining through in its quietly revolutionary imagery and the thematic underpinnings that pit our hero against Pedro Pascal ’s shady villain.

Where Wonder Woman pitched a previously sheltered Diana into wartime, the sequel fast-forwards several decades to the mid-’80s — and despite an initial influx of legwarmers, spandex and red-chrome Porsches, Jenkins resists leaning too heavily into the era’s pop- culture signifiers. Instead, the ’80s is invoked as a peak age of capitalist excess embodied by Pascal’s Maxwell Lord, all smarmy mannerisms and cheesy gestures. He’s a very different kind of bad guy to Wonder Woman ’s Ares, and yet niftily deployed as the antithesis of Diana — a liar-in-chief, appealing to people’s basest instincts in order to further his own personal gain, corrupting everyone he encounters.

Combined with the film’s Washington DC setting, it’s not hard to see what – or, who exactly – Jenkins is getting at. Despite the retro setting, the Trumpian satire means 1984 speaks directly to 2020. “I’m not a con man… I’m a television personality,” says Lord in one pointed barb. Pascal puts in an entertainingly broad performance, Lord’s tacky persona becoming more unhinged as his Wolf Of Washington schtick gives way to a deeper corruption tied to the powers of a mysterious crystal.

Caught in Lord’s tractor beam is Kristin Wiig ’s Barbara Minerva — a square gemologist who, per Lord’s catchphrase, very much wishes for more. After an early encounter with the effortlessly elegant Diana, she longs to be “cool, sexy, special” like her, sparking a Peter Parker-style glow-up. But as her admiration of Diana turns into something more dangerous, she goes from glamorous head-turner to full-blown Joan Jett — all smudged eyeliner, animal print and thigh-high boots. Wiig proves novel casting — her inherent likeability garners sympathy in the early scenes, but she holds her own through Barbara’s transformation, conjuring real menace when she turns the tables on a predatory creep.

Gadot's Diana exudes grace and goodness, her power displayed with an unabashed femininity that still feels revelatory.

As with the last film, the heart and soul of Wonder Woman 1984 is Gadot. Her Diana exudes grace and goodness, her power displayed with an unabashed femininity that still feels revelatory amid a crowded landscape of ripped male heroes. There’s an acrobatic fluidity to her action choreography that’s joyous to watch, a sense of weightlessness as she propels herself through the air. Superman might fly, but Wonder Woman soars .

Her dynamic with Steve Trevor (mysteriously returning for reasons we won’t divulge, despite sacrificing his life in Wonder Woman ) remains beautifully played. There are no Marvel-style gags here, but Pine draws plenty of chuckles as a more puppydog-ish version of his pilot. This time around he is the fish out of water and not Diana, marvelling at the wonders of a whole new age: punks, escalators, contemporary art and break-dancing. In a lovely touch, he is stunned by the achievements of NASA. After an action-heavy opening, Wonder Woman 1984 downshifts gears to spend a significant amount of time with its characters — Steve and Diana in particular. While some might find it a little slow, the easy charm of their company is delightful to bask in.

When the action does kick in, a year largely devoid of spectacle means the set-pieces sing with an extra vitality. An opening flashback in which a young Diana (a returning Lilly Aspell) competes in an Olympic-style Amazonian contest is thunderous and jubilant, its propulsive energy matched by the unexpected thrill of seeing a little girl drive a massive action sequence. As with the last film, there’s a wholesome tone that feels beamed in from a simpler era — one heavily armoured truck-chase is shot through with an Indiana Jones -ian sense of derring-do. If Jenkins’ touchstone has always been Richard Donner’s Superman , an immensely entertaining mall robbery conjures an unashamedly comic-booky kinetic flair akin to Raimi’s Spider-Man films, while a later clash rivals X2 for super-powered, White House-based showdowns. Notably, the formerly underused Lasso Of Truth gets more time to (literally) shine here, dazzling as it dances across the screen, and — in one joyous image — hitches a ride on a passing projectile.

Not all of the action lands. After the sludgy CGI climax of Wonder Woman , a face-off between Diana and an ‘evolved’ Barbara threatens to repeat similar failings. Thankfully, their brawl is a brief footnote in a final reel that shoots for a more ideological triumph of good over evil. One scene of personal sacrifice that dovetails into the final act perfectly captures an atypical form of heroism, rivalling the first film’s No Man’s Land sequence for sheer emotional power.

It’s in this sense that WW84 feels most triumphant. Between the pandemic, the protests against masks and vaccines, and the Presidential election, 2020 has been genuinely gruelling. It’s hard to know exactly how Jenkins’ film would have played had it been released months ago as intended — likely as an impassioned plea for collective empathy wrapped up in spandex. Now, as the vaccine rolls out and the Biden-Harris era looms, it feels like a colossal exhale — a promise of better days to come, testament to the reliability that light will triumph over darkness.

What’s most clear in Wonder Woman 1984 is that Patty Jenkins truly recognises the power of the imagery she’s committing to the screen: what it means to see a young girl be an action hero; the resonance of a power-hungry businessman broadcasting on White House comms; the majesty of Diana ascending skyward in the pursuit of changing the world for the better. These moments are so potent that it already feels like they have a life beyond the screen. Wonder Woman 1984 not only delivers the blockbuster thrills that 2020 has been missing — even more thrilling is the feeling it leaves you with: the hope that we too can propel ourselves into a brighter future.

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When Wonder Woman released in 2017, it showcased a lighter side of the, at the time, quite dark and gritty DC Extended Universe, and now Wonder Woman 1984 takes that hope and lightness to even further heights. For the sequel, director Patty Jenkins returns and takes on scripting duties alongside DC Comics writer Geoff Johns and screenwriter David Callaham ( The Expendables ). The movie trades in Diana Prince's (Gal Gadot) adventures in a World War I ravaged Europe for 1980s America, following the Amazonian princess long after she's lost the surviving friends she gained in the first film. Wonder Woman 1984 is filled with hope, love and optimism, offering impressively cinematic superhero action with beautifully sentimental heart.

In Wonder Woman 1984 , Diana is living her life alone in Washington D.C., choosing to not have any emotional attachments to the world around her even as she keeps up her superhero antics in secret. But when the timid and awkward Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) arrives at the Smithsonian, the two bond over a recent shipment of antiquities. One of those artifacts turns out to be much more than meets the eye and begins granting the wishes of those who come into contact with it, including both Barbara and Diana. However, when businessman Max Lord (Pedro Pascal) gets his hands on the artifact, his wish has far-reaching consequences. Thankfully, Diana is reunited with her long-dead boyfriend Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), who reminds her about the need for emotional attachment. With Steve's help, Diana sets out to save the world once again.

Related: Wonder Woman 1984: Every DCEU Character Returning In The Sequel

At its heart, Wonder Woman 1984 tells a very human story about love and loss that feels especially prescient in 2020, but the film never loses hope or faith in the ultimate goodness of the world and those who live in it. Gadot's Diana embodies that hope and optimism in every way - sometimes to the point that it feels far too unrealistic in a year filled with so much loss, but that blind idealism is also comforting in its steadfastness. Gadot again brings an equal amount of vulnerability and strength to the role of Diana that gives Wonder Woman a uniquely dynamic screen presence. Wonder Woman 1984 is further buoyed by Pine's turn as Steve Trevor, working well to ground Diana in a humanity that could be tough for an Amazonian princess. Their dynamic is as effortlessly charming as in the first film, with Pine bringing plenty of humor to his role. Gadot and Pine are juxtaposed well by Wiig and Pascal, who have their own arcs that work to showcase other sides of humanity.

But Diana is very much the heart of Wonder Woman 1984 , and it's this heart around which Jenkins, Johns and Callaham's script builds an epicly cinematic superhero action story. While the first Wonder Woman movie may have been more of an origin story, Wonder Woman 1984 very much depicts Diana as a fully-fledged superhero, and the action set pieces reflect this. They showcase a Wonder Woman who is mostly comfortable in her powers, and it's thrilling to see the hero revel in her strength. But there are also moments when Diana pushes her abilities and discovers new facets to her strength, which are just as electrifying. Though there isn't a sequence that replicates the breathtakingly exciting and emotional No Man's Land set piece in the first film, Wonder Woman 1984 does have one scene featuring Diana on her own that comes close. Altogether, there's plenty of fun action that's, for the most part, skillfully interweaved with the emotional through line of the film - all of which would look fantastic on a big theater screen.

Where Wonder Woman 1984 flounders a bit is in the sheer length of the movie, which clocks in at two hours and 30 minutes long. Jenkins' sequel is a sprawling superhero movie with epic action scenes and plenty of character-driven heart, but its pacing gets bogged down in thematic minutiae, the importance of which doesn't become clear until later in the film - sometimes much later. But while the themes of the film are perhaps overly explained, the actual world-building is glossed over much more quickly, culminating in a story in which the meaning is clear, even as the plot points are muddy at best. It's ultimately forgivable, but may leave some viewers frustrated by the story and/or pacing of Wonder Woman 1984 .

In the end, Wonder Woman 1984 delivers an impressively cinematic superhero experience, with the necessary heart and emotional storyline to keep it grounded. It's a well-rounded movie experience and would no doubt benefit from being seen on the biggest screen possible in order to get the full effect of Jenkins' directorial eye. It's a must-see for fans of the first Wonder Woman movie, picking up the threads from that film and exploring them in new, compelling ways - particularly in regard to Diana's relationship to humanity. Wonder Woman 1984 also epitomizes an optimism that's absolutely necessary in a year like 2020, which makes it an excellent watch for anyone in need of some hope this winter - and with the film releasing on HBO Max in addition to theaters, anyone wanting to see the movie (providing they're in the U.S., where the streaming service is available), can check it out. While many may not be able to watch Wonder Woman 1984 on a big theater screen, it serves as a reminder of just how fun, joyful and magical the movie-viewing experience can be.

Next: Wonder Woman 1984 Movie Trailer

Wonder Woman 1984 starts playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max Friday, December 25th. It is 151 minutes long and rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section!

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Wonder woman 2, the suicide squad, the flash movie2, shazam the fury of the gods, our rating:.

Movie Reviews
4 star movies

Wonder Woman 1984 Has a Surprisingly Deep Message

Patty Jenkins’s long-awaited sequel is a charming and poignant end to a tiring year of cinema.

Once upon a time, before anyone had ever uttered the words cinematic universe , superhero movies existed as effortless summer entertainment. Even though comic-book films have always had inflated budgets, big action set pieces, and broad target audiences, they used to be more self-contained. Following in this mold, Wonder Woman 1984 , Patty Jenkins’s long-awaited, pandemic-delayed sequel to 2017’s terrific origin-story film, isn’t concerned with setting up spin-offs. Nor does it tag in related DC Comics characters from other franchises or preview a new super-team. It’s a refreshingly silly and airy adventure focused on the emotions of one character, Wonder Woman (played by Gal Gadot), and a charming end to a tiring year of cinema.

Read: Why ‘Wonder Woman’ worked for DC

Originally due out at the end of 2019, Wonder Woman 1984 was bumped to 2020 and then pushed down the schedule over and over again because of theater closures; it’s finally reaching audiences on Friday, both in cinemas and on HBO Max. I watched it at home, but as with so many of this year’s releases, I longed for a cheering crowd and a floor-to-ceiling movie screen; several sequences were designed for IMAX viewing and felt a little lackluster in my living room. Still, I found some solace in the fact that millions of people will fire up the same film on Christmas Day and, hopefully, have themselves a breezy, fun time.

The first Wonder Woman was a prequel, spin-off, and franchise table-setter all in one, bringing in elements of the sprawling modern DC Comics universe but also explaining the origins of Diana (Gadot), an Amazonian goddess who becomes entangled in World War I and falls for the dashing pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) before losing him in battle. Rather than jumping to yet another weighty moment in the past (say, World War II) or to the present day, the sequel is set in 1984, gleefully dressing every background character in Day-Glo leggings and varsity jackets, and conjuring an era of more, more, more.

Read: The fitful evolution of Wonder Woman’s look

The time leap is a sly way to deal with questions prompted by the first Wonder Woman taking place in 1918—namely, why didn’t the superhuman Diana do more to avert historical catastrophes if she entered our world more than a century ago? The simplest answer, of course, is that one person (even one blessed with immortality and invulnerability) can do only so much. And in setting Wonder Woman 1984 in a decade defined by greed, Jenkins makes the point that evil can often arise from collective apathy and selfishness rather than one costumed supervillain. Faced with present-day calamities such as wealth inequality and climate change, Jenkins is swinging the camera back to an era she sees as the root of many of these problems.

Not that the movie doesn’t have individual bad guys. We have the preening businessman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), an absurdly coiffed, high-energy nincompoop who preaches a gospel of wealth on television. We also get the mousy Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), an impressionable archaeologist who’s eventually transformed into the furry adversary Cheetah. But Jenkins, who wrote the film with Geoff Johns and David Callaham, takes pains to highlight that these antagonists are victims too, of their own insecurities and doubts. The film’s MacGuffin is a magical ancient artifact that grants wishes and, in the wrong hands, wreaks total chaos—yet Jenkins argues that our own desires are often the most destructive forces.

Read: With ‘Wonder Woman,’ DC Comics finally gets it right

To me, that’s a much more intriguing narrative than the ones that define a lot of superhero movies, which focus on external triumphs, physical battles, and the obliteration of all-encompassing evils. Diana’s own desire, after all, is for some kind of normalcy, the comforting opposite of her life as an Amazonian demigoddess responsible for feats of derring-do. Though Steve died some 70 years prior, she’s still nursing her grief; I imagine time moves far more slowly for an immortal. Jenkins turns that lingering sadness into a strong secondary plotline, in which Steve is mystically returned to Diana—but at a price.

This thread is a curious use of Pine. Steve’s chemistry with Diana was scintillating in the first Wonder Woman , but he also bade her farewell with a fitting, memorably moving death scene. In 1984 , he’s back largely to supply fish-out-of-water comedy (he can’t believe everyone’s new fondness for parachute pants) and chip in as an action sidekick. On the surface, this role seems unworthy of Pine’s talents. But Jenkins uses the couple’s supernatural reunion to underline the tension between Diana’s life as a hero and her wish for mundanity. When Steve died, she lost not only their personal connection, but also the way he connected her to humanity.

Wonder Woman 1984 has plenty of goofiness—the aforementioned magic wishing stone, an action sequence at the mall with the aesthetics of a cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, and, in Cheetah, a villain who has seemingly leaped from the set of Tom Hooper’s Cats . But that levity complements the movie’s heart-on-sleeve storytelling, in which Diana can win a major battle by simply making an intense emotional appeal, and the best way for humanity to save itself is to embrace selflessness. That tone fits the film’s hero as snugly as her shiny golden armor does.

‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Reviews: What the Critics Are Saying

By Eli Countryman

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The DC Cinematic Universe seems to have found another success with “ Wonder Woman 1984 .”

Reviews began to flood in on Tuesday, with the majority of the critics favoring the film for its escapist qualities and director Patty Jenkins ‘ take on the 1980s. The movie, releasing in theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25, finds the titular character ( Gal Gadot ) in a world of hope and positivity as her love interest from the first film (Chris Pine) returns. And while “Wonder Woman 1984” has earned an 89% rating from Rotten Tomatoes after 71 critic reviews, many commentators noted that, while fun, the movie often felt overindulgent or cliché.

“Movies don’t solve global health crises, but they can distract and inspire us,” wrote Variety ‘s Peter Debruge. “They can bring us together when we’re apart and heal the divisions that define our times. I suppose ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ can achieve some of those things, but mostly it reminds us how badly we could use a superhero right now — a fantasy turn-back-time and fix-the-situation savior — and in that sense, it’s at once a fizzy pop-art distraction and a major downer.”

See what else the critics are saying below:

Popular on Variety

Variety ‘s peter debruge:.

“Like Jenkins’ original ‘Wonder Woman,’ this sequel spins out of control once the villains gain their full power, shifting from engaging character-based comedy to eye-crossing, CGI-bloated super-battle. (Cue Hans Zimmer’s typically overzealous thunder score.) Jenkins is an enormously talented filmmaker on whom the studio took a chance — one that’s seldom questioned when conferred upon men — and she proves her worth by never letting the spectacle drown out the performances. Unlike so many of DC’s impossibly chiseled leading men, the undeniably gorgeous Gadot makes Wonder Woman’s qualities seem relatable — and therefore worthy of aspiring to.”

Time’s Stephanie Zacharek:

“Why do we always have to be reminded of Wonder Woman’s purpose? Why can’t she just be? The 2017 ‘Wonder Woman’ held some promise that a new breed of superhero movies directed by women, and starring women, might actually be less formulaic than the guy-centric ones. Jenkins and Gadot built some wit into the thing: Diana, having been raised in a society of fiercely self-sufficient women athletes and warriors, had never seen a man before Steve Trevor dropped into her sights, and she had some fun figuring out the mysteries of this adorably inferior creature. Now, in addition to swinging her magic lasso around now and then, she’s saddled with a few too many dull, lofty speeches about truth. This, apparently, is the equality we fought for.”

Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos:

“The best moments of Jenkins’s ambitious and hefty sequel, ‘WW1984,’ engages with Wonder Woman’s very human problem. Diana is a goddess — in appearance, morality, strength, invulnerability — living among mortals, but she is otherwise alone. But superhero movies, even those with the emotional promise of Wonder Woman, are unfortunately never fully about the emotional fragility our characters can’t punch their way through. Superhero movies are supposed to be big, expensive, loud, and fun. And WW1984 is stuffed to its cinematic seams, sometimes to its detriment.”

Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson:

“Undoubtedly, ‘WW84’ would have played better on a big screen — because of the added scope and scale, and because it would be that much richer experienced among a supportive crowd. Sitting on your couch in your cramped domestic bubble (and, in my case, with a critic-screener watermark splashed across the screen), the effect is not quite so transporting. It has its moments of pure popcorn transcendence, but struggles to maintain an air of blockbuster grandeur. That is partly appreciated — in being so unconnected to the gravity of a cinematic universe, the film is freer, more nimble — but it’s also perhaps a sorry indicator of what’s to come, as Warner Bros. takes all of its tentpoles and shrinks them down to backyard size.”

BBC’s Nicholas Barber:

“Jenkins has said that she would have liked the film to be 15 minutes longer. Some viewers might have liked it to be 15 minutes shorter. But, for most of the running time, they will be happy to be in Wonder Woman’s uplifting company. In its old-fashioned, uncynical way, ‘WW84’ is one of the most enjoyable blockbusters to be released since 1984.”

Los Angeles Times’ Justin Chang:

“If what you wish for this season is high spirits, earnest emotions and the unironically delightful sight of Chris Pine in a fanny pack, well, consider it granted. This extravagant, genially overstuffed sequel may be a product of 2020, but its spirit feels gratifyingly in sync with 1984 — a year that, for all its Orwellian associations, predates the chaos and cynicism of our pandemic-stricken, politically deranged moment. And our comic-book movie craze, too: Jenkins (who wrote the script with Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham) channels a moment when blockbuster imperatives, while hardly absent, had not yet pummeled the industry into submission.”

Mashable’s Angie Han:

“What’s never in doubt is that ‘WW84,’ like its heroine, has its heart in the right place. The emotions work even when the calculations behind them don’t quite add up, and nowhere is this truer than in Diana and Steve’s rekindled relationship. Their romance has the proportions of a myth (she’s a goddess in love with a mortal), but it’s grounded in relatable pain (she’s a lonely woman who’s never gotten over her first love). Gadot and Pine smolder with an intensity that you believe could carry on for decades, and the very best of her performance shines through in the scenes when she’s rubbed completely raw.”

USA Today’s Brian Truitt:

“The biggest problem with ‘1984’ is there’s just too much of, well, everything. An extended Amazons-centric opening featuring kid Diana is cool but takes too long to get the movie humming, and some iffy visual effects mar the more massive, blockbuster-ready scenes. Still, the action-packed, heartwarming flick hits more than it misses, especially for fans waiting through a year full of release delays.”

Screen Rant’s Molly Freeman:

“At its heart, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ tells a very human story about love and loss that feels especially prescient in 2020, but the film never loses hope or faith in the ultimate goodness of the world and those who live in it. Gadot’s Diana embodies that hope and optimism in every way – sometimes to the point that it feels far too unrealistic in a year filled with so much loss, but that blind idealism is also comforting in its steadfastness. Gadot again brings an equal amount of vulnerability and strength to the role of Diana that gives Wonder Woman a uniquely dynamic screen presence. ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is further buoyed by Pine’s turn as Steve Trevor, working well to ground Diana in a humanity that could be tough for an Amazonian princess.”

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Wonder Woman 1984 review – the superheroine 2020 needs

Gal Gadot’s warrior queen strikes just the right tone of hope and dynamism in Patty Jenkins’s stylish, empowering sequel

T his long-delayed sequel to 2017’s hugely enjoyable superhero romp Wonder Woman was originally slated for release l ast Christmas, but it may be just the tonic we need right now. Combining the colourful charm and romance of Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman with an empowering 21st-century gender-flipped sensibility, it shifts the action from the battlegrounds of the first world war to the bumbags and rolled-up sleeves of the US in the 80s. The result is an entertaining (if somewhat overlong) adventure that once again owes more to the fun-loving spirit of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future than to the dour DC drudgery of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or Justice League .

As WW Jacobs’s tale The Monkey’s Paw tells us, wishes can come true – but at a terrible price. When a mysterious ancient stone turns up at the Smithsonian workplace of Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), its powers are initially hidden. But when self-conscious, socially awkward gemologist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) dreams of being more like her new friend Diana (strong, cool, beautiful), her imaginary makeover somehow becomes a reality. Meanwhile Diana, whose heart has remained broken since the loss of airman Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), finds herself wrapped in a Ghost -like embrace with a mysterious stranger, rekindling the flames of undying love.

Only failing businessman, fraudster and TV personality Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal, oozing desperate huckster smarm) knows what’s going on, fired by a growing megalomania that will take him to the White House, and bring the world to the brink of destruction…

From a sweeping Themyscira prologue in which young Diana is taught the importance of accepting defeat with grace (“nothing good is born from lies”) to scenes in which Lord rants like a blood-raged tyrant from the presidential podium, it’s hard to imagine a more apposite time to be watching WW1984 . When our heroine declares: “I hate guns”, you can almost feel the outrage from the ranks of the National Rifle Association – the same people who would have happily bought into Lord’s empty promises of “finally having everything you always wanted”.

Yet for all its satirical bite, director and co-writer Patty Jenkins’s lively action-fantasy never feels preachy or sour. On the contrary, what shines through is the sense of joy at presenting the world with an action hero to root for, someone whose fundamental decency harks back to a bygone age while also looking forward to a brighter future. Just as Christopher Reeve made Superman’s iconic fist-forward flying gesture his own, so Gal Gadot’s collection of carefully choreographed runny-spinny-slidey moves are as immediately identifiable as a classic 80s dance routine. She really is very good in a role that requires not only physical strength and emotional agility (watch her breeze inspirationally through an early confrontation with some off-the-peg bad guys) but also the ability to sell an unfashionably uncynical heroine in an age of moral torpor.

While some sections of the globe-trotting plot strike a baggy, backward-looking note, it’s the smaller moments that make this fly, particularly when the film uses fantasy to turn horribly real everyday harassments into moments of air-punching triumph. Wiig is perfectly cast as the wallflower who becomes a Venus flytrap, her combination of comic timing and dramatic chops ensuring that her character never descends into caricature. The result may not be perfect, but its uplifting spirit reminds us of the genetic link between superhero movies and screwball romcoms – all the while retaining an admirably straight face.

Wonder Woman 1984 is in cinemas

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Patty Jenkins
Kristen Wiig

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DVD & Streaming

Wonder Woman 1984

Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor walk purposefully.

In Theaters

December 25, 2020
Gal Gadot as Diana Prince; Chris Pine as Steve Trevor; Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva; Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord; Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta; Robin Wright as Antiope; Lilly Aspell as Young Diana

Home Release Date

Patty Jenkins

Distributor

Warner Bros.

Movie Review

Even superheroes have hidden wishes.

For Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman, that wish isn’t as difficult to guess at as one might think. After all, she’s lived a pretty solitary life after losing her first love, Steve Trevor, so many years ago.

It’s not like she hasn’t had any attention from members of the opposite sex. I mean, hey, she’s as dazzlingly beautiful, astonishingly brilliant and sleekly classy as you might imagine a Themyscirian Amazon to be. But being nearly ageless doesn’t bode well for long-term relationships in a human world.

So, she’s been living a fairly lonely life in Washington, D.C., her apartment littered with pictures and reminders of friends and loved ones now long gone. She works at the Smithsonian, when not out saving lives in her form-fitting red and blue armor.

One day, though, her interest is piqued by a strange stone that’s sent to the museum by the FBI, after being found in a black-market stash of antiquities. Diana meets the museum’s mousy gemologist, Barbara Minerva, and the two strike up a friendship while examining the relic and its strange Latin inscription.

That inscription promises to grant one great wish to whoever holds the stone. For Diana that would be for the return of her only love, Steve Trevor, who sacrificed his life to save others in the waning days of World War II ( in the first film ). For Barbara, it would actually be to become a lot like the incredibly graceful Diana. They both make their inner-voiced wishes while publicly snorting over the silliness of the idea.

But what if the stone can grant wishes?

What if one’s deepest desires could come true?

What if anyone, good or evil, could touch the stone and walk away with anything they longed for? It’s only later, after Diana, Barbara and others have had their wishes granted, that this question comes to mind: At what price do wishes, even superhero wishes, come true?

Positive Elements

Wonder Woman 1984 suggests that greatness isn’t always the glory-filled mountaintop experience you might think it is. Often, being truly great requires a lot of self-sacrifice and effort on someone else’s behalf. And true acts of bravery often require “patience, diligence and the courage to face the truth.”

We’re also told that life isn’t always fair. It can be painful and lonely. And others can appear to have it far easier that you. But in spite of that, life is rich. Even in the face of incredible loss, life can offer so many good things if you merely make the effort, and take the time, to reach for them. “No true hero is born from lies,” a tween Diana is told after taking a shortcut in an Amazonian competition. Indeed, the film strongly emphasizes the importance of truth as a bedrock

We see Barbara give food to a homeless man and do other nice things for people before her personality changes after gaining her wish.

Elsewhere, in spite of his many flaws, a manipulative man eventually steps away from things he’s gained to show his love to his son. The conclusion ultimately reinforces the notion of how important fathers are, and that a bad dad can do damage to a son that reverberates down through the generations; a good dad, meanwhile, takes responsibility for his mistakes and doesn’t embrace perfection as a standard for himself or his children.

Spiritual Elements

There is, of course, a nod to Greek gods here, since the fictional Themyscirian history is based on such things. And the wishing stone (or Dream Stone as Barbara calls it) is purported to have been created by an “ancient god of lies,” an entity that used it to destroy numerous civilizations through history, including the Mayans.

People begin to riot in the street at one point, and a man with a Bible in hand calls out warnings to those around him. “Can you see what your sinfulness has done?” he cries.

[ Spoiler Warning ] We find out that the Dream Stone works much like the old legend of the Monkey’s Paw: when a boon is given, recipients must surrender their most prized possession.

Sexual Content

Diana and Steve (whose essence takes over the body of another man, but whom Diana only sees as Steve) embrace and kiss a number of times. And they are shown waking up together in the same bed. Steve’s shirtless in that scene, while Diana wears a slinky camisole. We also see Barbara working out in a gym in a very revealing and clingy leotard.

During a party at the Smithsonian, Diana and Barbara dress in very form-flattering outfits that draw the surrounding men’s attention. Other tops worn by women are low cut and cleavage revealing.

Barbara heads to her office with a man named Max Lord. She’s intent, it seems, upon a sexual encounter in that private space, and the two do kiss passionately. Max, however, is mostly feigning sexual interest in order to steal something from Barbara.

Several older men ogle a group of young women dressed in tights as they bend over and stretch during a choreographed exercise routine. A TV ad features a small group of bikini-clad women surrounding a guy on an expensive motorboat.

As the plot unfolds, various people in places of prestige and power use the Dream Stone to make wishes. One of these is a stereotyped 1980s televangelist whom we hear has some sort of a sex-tape scandal that he wants to disappear.

Violent Content

Once Barbara gets her wish to become more like Diana, she also gains Diana’s strength and athleticism. With these abilities, Barbara starts bashing and thumping anyone who displeases her.

One of those beatings involves a drunken man who grabs her in two separate scenes and, darkly, seems intent upon sexually assaulting her. In the first of those encounters, Wonder Woman comes to her rescue. The second, however, finds Barbara brutally unleashing her strength upon the drunken letch, beating and kicking him mercilessly, to the point that it’s not even clear if he’s alive or dead as he lies bloodily in the street. It’s one of the film’s more disturbing scenes.

Elsewhere, Barbara moves on to running around a large room full of men and throwing them around in careless ways. (Some might have died, except that Diana uses her strength and lasso to save them). Eventually Diana and Barbara go after each other (after Barbara morphs creepily into a half-human/half-cat “apex predator” named Cheetah), and they slam each other into concrete walls and electrocuting electric wires.

Diana is attacked by gunmen, street thugs, secret service officers and a variety of other people with pistols and automatic weapons. And because of an effect that weakens her, she is bloodied and repeatedly wounded (though those wounds on her chest and shoulders disappear after her powers are restored). In addition, large armored cars try to crush her. Meanwhile, Steve takes his share of swings at opponents, too.

Wonder Woman saves many people in the course of things, and on multiple occasions she steps aside in the heat of a fight to scoop up children and swing them quickly to safety or to deflect falling objects away from them. Some thugs are slammed down on the roof of a cop car.

When a self-serving con man named Maxwell Lord gets his hand on the wishing stone, he has it transfer its powers to him and he then starts granting wishes for his own glory. But the stone also takes a painful toll on his body, causing him to bleed from his eyes, nose and ears.

We witness other wishers suffer in painful physical ways as well. As the human world begins to decline thanks to the Dream Stone’s powers, riots break out in the streets, nuclear war is threatened, and global chaos erupts.

[ Spoiler Warning ] A flashback at the end of the film unpacks Max’s backstory. We see him as a child, impoverished, picked upon and growing up with a raging father who physically and emotional abuses him. For some viewers who’ve experienced or witnessed domestic abuse, this could be a difficult scene.

Crude or Profane Language

There is a single use of the s-word and single uses of “b–ch” and “h—.” Someone calls out “oh my gosh” and “shoot” a couple times each. And God’s name is misused once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

In a heated moment, a guy gulps back a glass of booze. Some people have glasses of wine or champagne at a party. And Diana drinks wine with dinner.

Other Negative Elements

Granted wishes, in turn, push some people in greedy, evil directions, especially Maxwell Lord.

As superhero sequels go, especially DC superhero sequels, Wonder Woman 1984 is pretty top-shelf. It carries on Diana of Themyscira’s story with aplomb—casting satirical winks and chuckles at the 1980s and all of that decade’s quirky, parachute-pants-and-fanny-pack glory. It’s filled with thrilling action sequences, aptly adorned with a magical good-versus-evil storyline and peppered with enough romance to keep the romantically minded sighing.

On top of that there are some pretty solid lessons here, too. Wonder Woman reaches for truth in the face of lies. She chooses to give self-sacrificially for others. And she goes from initially feeling lonely after spending fifty years by herself in this crazy human world, to noting that life—even in the face of a great loss—has so much to offer and enjoy.

Content-wise, Wonder Woman 1984 feels broadly similar to the first film, albeit with a couple of caveats. A morning-after scene involves Diana waking up in bed with her newly restored Steve Trevor—implying a little more intimacy than younger fans really need to be dwelling on, and more than we saw in the first film. Barbara’s would-be tryst with Max Lord doesn’t ultimately move pass kissing, but she’s clearly got more on her mind. And some of the scenes of violence here, particularly Barbara’s savage beatdown of a would-be sexual assault perpetrator, are wince-inducing as well.

Like the first film, those issues don’t unduly detract from this valorous hero’s second story, which in other ways is about as old-fashioned and uplifting as you might hope for. Ultimately, Wonder Woman remains a positive and inspirational icon who stands for truth, even when doing so comes at great sacrificial cost.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Review: With big villains and bigger hair, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is a gloriously overstuffed sequel

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The lessons of “Wonder Woman 1984” are a bit like the movie itself: familiar, direct and winningly sincere. “No true hero is born from lies.” “Greatness is not what you think.” “Beware what you wish for.” There’s a prosaic quality to these cautionary statements, which might have elicited an eye-roll in less assured hands. But here, as in the enormously successful “Wonder Woman” (2017) , the director Patty Jenkins and her star, Gal Gadot, have mastered the art of cornball conviction. If what you wish for this season is high spirits, earnest emotions and the unironically delightful sight of Chris Pine in a fanny pack, well, consider it granted.

This extravagant, genially overstuffed sequel may be a product of 2020, but its spirit feels gratifyingly in sync with 1984 — a year that, for all its Orwellian associations, predates the chaos and cynicism of our pandemic-stricken, politically deranged moment. And our comic-book movie craze, too: Jenkins (who wrote the script with Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham) channels a moment when blockbuster imperatives, while hardly absent, had not yet pummeled the industry into submission. In 1984, while the likes of Indiana Jones, the Ghostbusters and Gremlins were dominating the box office, one of the few superhero pictures of any note was the ill-fated “Supergirl.”

As it happens, “Wonder Woman 1984” is one of the few superhero pictures of any note this year, albeit for very different reasons. On Dec. 25, kicking off a new Warner Bros. strategy that has angered many in the industry, the movie will be released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. (In the interests of public safety, Wonder Woman herself would urge you toward the latter.) The pandemic’s toll on moviegoing, and the temporary suspension of our collective blockbuster fatigue, may account in part for why this picture makes such welcome company. But it also has something to do with Gadot’s Old Hollywood glamour, Pine’s second-banana appeal and the serio-comic elasticity of Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal in key supporting roles. They’re all distinctive parts in a smooth-running narrative engine that channels the buoyancy and big-hearted spectacle of the Richard Donner “Superman” movies, with a few period-appropriate nods to body-swap comedies for good measure.

It begins with a flashback to the distant Paradise Island childhood of Diana Prince (the terrific Lilly Aspell). She is the youngest participant in a mind-boggling Amazonian Gladiators-style arena tournament to which acrophobes, aquaphobes and men need not apply. The spectacle that follows is a dazzler, presided over by the regal Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright, and set to the breathless surge of Hans Zimmer’s score. It will also have important implications years later for 1984 Diana (Gadot), now a curator at the Smithsonian.

Gal Gadot and Chris Pine in the movie "Wonder Woman 1984."

Diana’s expertise is in antiquities, by which I mean old artworks and ancient languages, not fanny packs — one of several ’80s-beloved accouterments (the work of the movie’s inexhaustibly inventive costume designer, Lindy Hemming) that bear out the accuracy of the movie’s title. “Wonder Woman 1984” is a predictable riot of pastel hues and preppy polo shirts, ankle warmers and rolled-up blazer sleeves. Some of these are modeled by Diana’s soulmate, Capt. Steve Trevor (Pine), a World War I pilot who charmingly transforms himself into a human Ken doll in one of the movie’s more lightly subversive sequences.

Mysteriously resurrected decades after his time (not unlike another captain named Steve, played by a Chris, from a rival comic-book property), Steve is understandably jolted by this strange new world and mostly delighted by its boxy, big-haired excess. In short, he assumes the comically bewildered fish-out-of-water role previously occupied by Diana, with whom he is joyously reunited. She’s entirely at ease with her ’80s moment, if also immune to its worst trends, preferring to rock an elegant chiffon gown — and, of course, her signature Wonder Woman garb, which comes in handy whenever a mall robbery needs foiling.

But the most closely scrutinized accessory on this movie’s fashion-packed runway is not the Lasso of Truth; it’s the high-heeled shoe. That brings us to Dr. Barbara Minerva (Wiig), a nerdy, soft-spoken Smithsonian gemologist who befriends Diana and envies her superhuman radiance; Barbara, by contrast, trips and totters about the office in a pair of heels that become a kind of comic shorthand for bumbling loserdom. But as she and Diana wryly note, those shoes are also a symbol of the everyday pressures brought to bear on all women, for whom it’s never enough to be merely competent and smart (but not too smart). They must also be physically deft, stylishly attired and, of course, sexually available and receptive to men at all times.

Again and again, Diana and Barbara have to endure and deflect unwanted male attention; you may lose count of all the run-of-the-mill boors and slobbering predators they have to fend off, and you’re meant to. If the first “Wonder Woman” broke ground for female-forward blockbusters, then “Wonder Woman 1984” is another rarity, a superhero movie that actively interrogates and dismantles rape culture. And casual sexism, too: Thanks to recent headlines, one of the movie’s most unexpectedly resonant moments arrives when Barbara quietly corrects a man by pointing out that she has a doctorate.

But hey, at least the dude addressing her doesn’t call her “kiddo.” He’s Maxwell Lord (“The Mandalorian’s” Pascal), a sleazy oil tycoon who’s about to take his grift to another level. Laying hands on an ancient “Dream Stone,” he somehow absorbs and maximizes its mystical properties, granting wishes to anyone he comes across and robbing them of their own precious gifts and treasures in return. His powers thus become the currency in an ever-escalating Ponzi scheme, transforming “Wonder Woman 1984” into, among other things, a sharp and slippery critique of its materially obsessed me-first decade.

Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig in "Wonder Woman 1984."

A pathological liar, shameless self-promoter and terrible father (to a young son played by Lucian Perez), Max is willing to wreak global havoc to make himself seem far richer and more successful than he really is. In other words, he may remind you of a certain other norm wrecker who rose to prominence in the ’80s, even if Pascal’s fidgety, self-implosive performance is ultimately too human to be reduced to Trumpian caricature. The actor has always been good at embodying self-destructive hubris, as our fond memories of Oberyn Martell attest , and he snorts and sweats and schemes his way through this movie like an addict on a bender.

Max is not the movie’s only villain, or its only character to succumb to the giddy rush of fulfilling your wildest dreams. I won’t say too much about what happens to Barbara (though DC Comics scholars will be well ahead of me), except to note that she allows Wiig to lean into the prickly aggression that has always undergirded her funniest characters and sketches. Here, as in the romantic comedy “Bridesmaids,” she uses familiar genre beats to build a slyly multi-dimensional performance, one whose emotional layers are even more impressive than her many changes of wardrobe. (You’ll love her as an Olivia Newton-John-style fitness champ, maybe less so in a cheetah costume that feels on loan from another dubious ’80s colossus, “Cats.”)

Both Wiig and Pascal are allowed to go exuberantly over-the-top in a movie that, at two and a half hours and with extended jaunts between Egypt and Washington, D.C., can seem as excessive and unwieldy as the decade it’s satirizing. But aesthetically and conceptually, “Wonder Woman 1984” holds together. The ’80s decor (courtesy of production designer Aline Bonetto) is by turns cheeky and earnest, celebratory and satirical. The greed-is-bad moralizing feels both era-specific and pointedly contemporary. Gadot and Pine give great pillow talk, and their easy screwball rhythms provide not just levity but ballast: They ground a movie in which time, for all its malleability, always feels like it’s slipping away.

This is true even (and maybe especially) for Diana, a timeless hero who feels bound to every moment, and an immortal being whose humanity is never in doubt. Already a paragon of virtue, she is nonetheless as susceptible as anyone to the lure of the Dream Stone, whose powers have the effect of draining her own. That gives Jenkins’ cleanly shot action scenes a heightened vulnerability and danger, though here, as in the first film, Gadot does her most striking work off the battlefield. Her Diana needs only the twinge of an eyebrow to register doubt or self-reproach, only a knowing smile and a muttered “We won’t be doing that today” to bring a gun-toting robber to his knees. She’s magnetic and self-effacing, earnest and knowing, an icon without an ego. She’s an antidote to these blockbuster-free times — and also, I suspect, to some of the blockbusters to come.

‘Wonder Woman 1984’

Rating: PG-13, for sequences of action and violence Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 25 in general release where theaters are open and streaming on HBO Max

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‘wonder woman 1984’: film review.

Gal Gadot and, yes, Chris Pine return in 'Wonder Woman 1984,' Patty Jenkins' sequel to the 2017 hit about the Amazonian warrior princess, this time facing Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig as adversaries.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Patty Jenkins ‘ stirring 2017 stand-alone feature debut for the popular character who made her first DC Comics appearance in 1941, Wonder Woman , came along at just the right time to shake up the male-dominated superhero screen universe, reinvigorating the genre landscape with amped-up estrogen in her fight for peace, love and equality. The movie, like Black Panther the following year, was significant in terms of its step forward in representation; for many of us whose appetite for superhero sagas has its limits, these two films remain high points. The feverish anticipation around this sequel at the end of a pandemic year that’s been lean on blockbusters will automatically generate an enthusiastic welcome, even if it doesn’t avoid the sophomore trap.

As the first high-profile feature from the delayed Warner Bros. slate to go out simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max ahead of the studio’s full roster in 2021, Wonder Woman 1984 has a lot riding on it. No doubt, big-screen consumption that includes Imax in some locations will benefit the viewer experience. But safe access at home will be a welcome relief for many more, with the potential to do for the WarnerMedia streamer what Hamilton did for Disney+.

Release date: Dec 25, 2020

Jenkins’ first entry, written by Allan Heinberg, was a powerful origin story that followed the protagonist’s self-discovery with ample breathing space for character development between action sequences that mixed visceral sword-and-shield clashes with exciting superhuman feats. Gal Gadot ‘s physically commanding demigoddess Diana led a ragtag team of men to bring down a World War I German chemical weaponry plot. Her chief ally against evil was Chris Pine ‘s American fighter pilot Steve Trevor, also providing a dreamy romance that humanized her without ever reducing her to swooning mush.

Where the 2017 film invoked the gods, the over-complicated, two-and-a-half-hour sequel — written by Jenkins, former DC Comics president and CCO Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham — invokes … The Art of the Deal ? Pedro Pascal plays Maxwell Lord, an unctuously familiar breed of snake oil salesman in a honey-blond ’80s wig thick with hair product. He’s first seen hawking tickets to the American Dream in tacky TV commercials for his Black Gold Oil Cooperative, a dodgy land-rights purchase whose investors are getting antsy. Max’s greatest fear is being considered a “loser,” but his palatial offices are a front for an empire with no foundations. Pascal is always a magnetic actor, but the overt Trumpiness, especially this late in the game, is just too on-the-nose to be amusing.

WW84 is at its entertaining best in the early sequences. As she did in the last installment, Jenkins opens by returning to Diana’s childhood (she’s played with appealing pluck by Lilly Aspell), bringing back Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright, respectively, as her mother, Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, and her mighty warrior aunt and mentor, Antiope.

'Wonder Woman 1984' Set for Full Theatrical Release in China

There’s welcome humor, too, in Steve’s adjustment to the wonders of the “futuristic time” in which he’s reappeared, and to its wardrobe. Fans of one of the most endearingly cheesy elements of both the vintage comics and the 1970s TV series — the invisible plane — will be delighted to see it make a comeback in a magical scene that has the rejoined lovers flying through July 4 fireworks. (A friend recently confessed that one of his formative baby-gay moments was building an invisible plane by cutting up plastic water bottles and Scotch-taping them together.) When they follow the dangerously empowered Max to an Egypt of CG pyramids, there’s also a thrilling road chase in which Diana and Steve go up against the crooked American businessman, who has co-opted an oil baron’s security detail in armored vehicles.

But it’s soon after that point that the movie starts succumbing to breathless over-plotting. Part of it is a question of balance, with two villains competing for attention and neither of them all that compelling. Given that advance press and trailers have made it abundantly clear, it’s no spoiler to reveal that Barbara becomes Cheetah, a role in which Wiig attempts to stretch her range but just seems miscast. Her transformation from sweet social misfit, yearning to be “strong, sexy, cool, special,” to a ruthless apex predator who sacrifices her goodness is too abrupt to be convincing. And the physical clashes between the two women have a rote feel, including one that demolishes great chunks of White House interior.

Cheetah in many ways is a less interesting Catwoman, particularly as played so divinely by Michelle Pfeiffer in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns , which holds up remarkably well after almost 30 years. There are parallels also with that film’s other villains. Max Lord’s megalomaniacal hunger for success is traced back to childhood abuse from his father and his teenage outsider years; he could almost be an amalgam of Danny DeVito’s ugly orphan outcast Penguin and Christopher Walken’s sleazy business tycoon, Max Shreck.

As talented as both Pascal and Wiig are, neither actor is given the scope to have much fun with their characters, and the climax in which good inevitably triumphs over evil and the myth of being able to have it all makes way for the value of truth seems, well, anticlimactic.

There’s still a lot to love. Gadot remains a charismatic presence who wields the lasso with authority, even tethering lightning bolts in some arresting moments. However, I missed the more hand-to-hand gladiatorial aspect of so many fight scenes in the first movie. There’s a disarming romantic touch in Diana acquiring the ability of flight through Steve’s explanation of its rudimentary principles. But watching her soar through the air — while consistent with later editions of the comic — also detracts from the athletic leaps that make the character distinctive, turning her into an ersatz Superman with a cuter outfit.

Warner Bros. Smashes Box Office Windows, Will Send Entire 2021 Slate to HBO Max and Theaters

Distributor: Warner Bros./HBO Max Production companies: Atlas Entertainment, Stone Quarry Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lilly Aspell, Amr Waked, Kristoffer Polaha, Natasha Rothwell, Ravi Patel, Oliver Cotton, Lucian Perez, Gabriella Wilde, Kelvin Yu, Stuart Milligan, Shane Attwooll Director: Patty Jenkins Screenwriters: Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, Dave Callaham; story by Jenkins, Johns, based on characters from DC; Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston Producers: Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, Zack Snyder, Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, Stephen Jones Executive producers: Rebecca Steel Roven Oakley, Richard Suckle, Marianne Jenkins, Geoff Johns, Walter Hamada, Chantal Nong Vo, Wesley Coller Director of photography: Matthew Jensen Production designer: Aline Bonetto Costume designer: Lindy Hemming Music: Hans Zimmer Editor: Richard Pearson Visual effects supervisor: John Moffatt Casting: Lucinda Syson, Kristy Carlson

Rated PG-13, 150 minutes

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Wonder woman 1984, common sense media reviewers.

Melancholy DC sequel about redemption has mixed messages.

Wonder Woman 1984 Movie Poster: Wonder Woman stands in the center of the poster, looking out at viewers

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Clear messages about women's ability to be skilled

Diana continues to be a brave, fierce, loyal warri

As Wonder Woman, Diana is an important example of

Frequent peril and risk. Many people are injured,

Several passionate kisses/making out and a scene i

Infrequent strong or insult language includes one

Mostly car makes: Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, Camaro, B

Drinking at meals and at receptions -- mostly beer

Positive Messages

Clear messages about women's ability to be skilled warriors/fighters, the importance of empathy, compassion, courage, and teamwork. Shows various ways people can be heroes. Strong message about importance of truth and the pernicious nature of greed and excess. Encourages people to think carefully about their deepest wishes and desires -- whether they help or hurt ("be careful what you wish for"). Also some deeper messages about personal sacrifice, the nature of humanity, and sexism and how it can affect and impact women and girls. But Barbara's transformation can be seen as suggesting that tight/cool clothes and high heels are key parts of self-esteem and being admired and liked as a woman. Problematic messages around the idea of returning colonized land, the impact of domestic abuse, and lack of consent/agency.

Positive Role Models

Diana continues to be a brave, fierce, loyal warrior who's also selfless and kind. Steve is brave and selfless, too, willing once again to sacrifice himself for the greater good (though he and Diana also don't indicate any concern about him taking over someone else's body and using it without the owner's consent). Barbara is initially intelligent, warm, and kind, but she's also portrayed as insecure -- and later cruel and selfish. But ( spoiler alert! ) the villain redeems himself by realizing that power and influence come with a price he's ultimately unwilling to pay.

Diverse Representations

As Wonder Woman, Diana is an important example of a strong female superhero. Although, her likability relies on notions of traditional beauty and femininity. Barbara's transformation from a mousy geologist into a glamorous and powerful villain also plays into these standards. Most main characters are White, but another villain, Max, is Latino (Chilean American Pedro Pascal) and is given some depth in his backstory. Characters of color appear in minor roles, and some reinforce negative racial and cultural stereotypes: The only recurring Black character is unhoused, and the ruler of a fictional Middle Eastern nation uses his oil wealth to deal in nuclear arms.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Frequent peril and risk. Many people are injured, sometimes bloodily, but characters don't kill or die as often as in previous DC movies. Thieves brandish and fire guns in a mall heist; one grabs a child and holds her hostage, dangling her over a railing. A woman bloodily beats a man who had previously attempted to assault her. Mass worldwide chaos leads to mob-like protests and unrest. Diana and Steve fight armed security guards with heavy, war-level artillery. Diana is visibly injured. Nuclear weapons are wished for, and nuclear war breaks out between the United States and the USSR. A young child looks lost and disoriented and calls for his father; other scenes also show children in danger. A character's physical appearance deteriorates disturbingly, with blood dripping out of ears, nose, etc. The Amazons compete in a physically demanding, dangerous, Olympics-style game. A flashback reveals how Asteria wore special armor to keep male attackers away from the Amazons, sacrificing herself to keep her compatriots safe. Another flashback shows a child witnessing domestic abuse. Men often make unsolicited and unwanted comments to women. A man's body is used for sex without his consent (he's not occupying the body at the time).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Several passionate kisses/making out and a scene implying that a couple has had sex (they're in bed together; nothing graphic seen). Sight-gag joke with Steve eating crackers in bed. Diana wears a tight, short, form-hugging/revealing armored costume, as do the rest of the Amazon warriors. Another female character wears increasingly tight, body conscious outfits as well.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent strong or insult language includes one use of "s--t," "bitch," and "hell," as well as sexist catcalling and self-deprecating comments like "loser," "weak," "nothing," "stupid."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Mostly car makes: Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, Camaro, Budweiser, etc. Part of the large, merchandise-filled DC/Wonder Woman franchise.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Drinking at meals and at receptions -- mostly beer, wine, or champagne.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Wonder Woman 1984 is the sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman and takes place about 65 years after the events of the first film. Gal Gadot returns as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, who finds herself up against two new villains ( Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal ) who are motivated by envy and greed -- but she's also reunited with her long-lost love, Steve Trevor ( Chris Pine ). There's more romance in Wonder Woman than most other superhero films: Diana and Steve embrace, kiss, and are shown in bed together (nothing graphic seen); another couple also makes out. While there's no world war (or war god) in this movie's story, it does have near-constant peril and risk, with much of the world devolving into mass chaos as the result of the villains' actions. Expect battle scenes, car chases, heavy artillery, gun use, references to nuclear weapons, children in danger, beatings, and hand-to-hand combat. Characters are injured, sometimes gravely, but not killed -- though there are a few sad plot twists. One character's physical appearance deteriorates disturbingly, with blood dripping out of his ears, nose, etc. Language is infrequent but includes "s--t," "bitch," and "hell"; adults drink socially. This sequel isn't as diverse as the original but does feature female leads, a woman writer-director, and Chilean American Pascal as the villain. That said, it also has stereotypical representations of Middle Eastern people and problematic messages around the idea of returning colonized land, the impact of domestic abuse, and the lack of consent/agency. But there are positive messages about women's ability to be skilled warriors/fighters, as well as the importance of compassion , courage , empathy , and teamwork . To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parents say (28)
Kids say (81)

Based on 28 parent reviews

Here are some things parents need to know about this movie,

Really fun, but kind of shallow, what's the story.

WONDER WOMAN 1984 takes place seven decades after the events of Wonder Woman , with Diana Prince ( Gal Gadot ) now a curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Her new colleague/friend, shy gemologist Barbara Minerva ( Kristen Wiig ), has been asked by the FBI to consult on a recovered stolen artifact: a citrine rock embedded in a base engraved with Latin words asking those who hold it to make a wish. Diana amuses Barbara by making a wish while holding it, and later Barbara wishes that she were as strong, confident, and sexy as Diana. After Barbara gives a private tour to museum donor and TV infomercial host/oil entrepreneur Max Lord ( Pedro Pascal ), he steals the stone. It quickly becomes clear that the stone really does grant wishes, because Barbara transforms into a superstrong, put-together, charming woman, and Diana meets a man who seems to be Steve Trevor ( Chris Pine ) resurrected (others see him in the new man's body, Quantum Leap -style, but Diana and the audience see the old Steve). Diana and Steve go on a mission to find the stone, not realizing that it's now inextricably linked to Max, who wants to be the most powerful and influential man on the planet.

Is It Any Good?

Campier and less revolutionary than the original, this long but entertaining sequel still shows the many ways women can be strong, heroic, and smart. (Though it does suggest that some of that hinges on being able to pull off high heels.) Wonder Woman 1984 also highlights the dangers of greed and excess. Director Patty Jenkins seems to relish displaying the "me" decade in all its materialistic glory, with the big hair, the big malls, and the big desires to win at all costs. Working from a screenplay she co-wrote with Geoff Johns and David Callaham, Jenkins also features a more melancholic Diana this time around. She's spent 65 years missing her one true love, Steve, whom many fans will agree is worth a lifetime of "pining" for. When he reemerges, there's a sweet callback to the first movie's fashion show sequence. Now Steve is the one trying on different 1980s outfits to blend in with the times (get ready for Pine in a fanny pack and Members' Only-style jacket). There's also a lot of immediate romance, since they're lovers reuniting rather than strangers meeting-cute and getting to know each other. Once again, Diana and Steve are one of the most romantic superhero-partner couples.

Wiig is a precise choice for Barbara Minerva, who's described in DC Comics lore as ambitious, selfish, and neurotic -- although in this case, the selfishness only manifests after her wish is granted. Barbara's metamorphosis is well executed, as is the character's desire to be as beautiful and bold (not to mention strong) as Diana, even though that doesn't ultimately bring her happiness. Pascal is wonderfully smarmy and self-aggrandizing as Lord, the entrepreneur who wants it all. Diana's commitment to change hearts rather than break bodies (she refuses to use guns and only hurts people when she has no other choice) is a powerful reminder that protectors can use other skills besides their might to help defuse situations. Of course, she still has to knock out a bunch of evil-doers, but these aren't the death- and blood-filled battles of the Batman movies. Despite the performances of the supervillains, Wonder Woman 1984 is at its best when Gadot and Pine are together -- and not (just) because they're both disarmingly gorgeous, but because their chemistry and their connection are what drives the story forward. It's just too bad their reunion here comes with some tricky issues related to consent.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Wonder Woman 1984 's messages about greed, excess, and conspicuous consumption. How does the desire for "more" corrupt those who make wishes?

How do the characters demonstrate courage and teamwork ? What about Diana's keen sense of compassion and empathy ? Why are those all important character strengths ? Why do you think she's unwilling to use guns and unnecessarily hurt people? How does that compare to other superheroes' attitude toward weapons?

What makes Diana a role model in Wonder Woman ? Why does Barbara envy her? What message is the movie sending through Barbara's transformation? Does wearing tight dresses and high heels make her "better" in some way?

How did you feel about the way Steve came back for this movie? Spoiler alert: Is it OK that he and Diana treated the body he was using as if it really belonged to him? What message does that send about the importance of consent and agency?

Talk about how Middle Eastern characters are represented in the movie. Why do you think it's so common for Middle Eastern characters to be portrayed as villains? How does the movie's storyline perpetuate stereotypes about Middle Eastern men?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 25, 2020
On DVD or streaming : March 30, 2021
Cast : Gal Gadot , Pedro Pascal , Chris Pine , Kristen Wiig
Director : Patty Jenkins
Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Middle Eastern/North African actors, Latino actors, Female writers
Studio : Warner Bros.
Genre : Action/Adventure
Topics : Superheroes , Great Girl Role Models
Character Strengths : Compassion , Courage , Empathy , Teamwork
Run time : 151 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : sequences of action and violence
Last updated : January 8, 2024

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Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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'Wonder Woman 1984' Review: A Startlingly Kind, Delightfully Cheesy Balm For The Horrors Of 2020

With Wonder Woman , director Patty Jenkins went to war for the right to be a little cheesy. The 2017 superhero movie was decadent with sincerity, with an unabashed hope for humanity that made it a lone bright spot in the increasingly dour comic book movie landscape.

With Wonder Woman 1984 , the highly anticipated follow-up to Jenkins' mega-hit, the filmmaker digs her heels even further into that promise of cheesy superhero goodness, to the point of it being a potential health hazard. But the cartoonishly optimistic charms of Wonder Woman 1984 feel like a direct rebuke of the current political and cultural landscape in a way that is unquestionably ham-fisted, but is — as trite as it sounds to repeat this far-too repeated phrase —a much-needed balm for 2020.

The film opens not in the '80s, but in Themyscira during Diana's childhood, as she trains to be an Amazonian warrior. The diminutive Diana (an ever-buoyant Lilly Aspell ) is the only child competing in the Amazon Olympics, but she more than holds her own in a lush, lengthy sequence full of the crispness and color that made Themyscira such a hit in the first film. It reflects Diana's nostalgia for the "magical world of my childhood," and feels perhaps a little too much like Jenkins and company miss Themyscira as much as Diana does.

There's a lesson to be learned, though. At the end of Diana's obstacle course filled with graceful equestrian leaps, loop-de-loops, awesome stunts, and — gasp — attempted shortcuts, it's made clear: there is no "short path" in life. It's a bit of a clunky way for the movie to begin, by spelling out its lesson through a striking, but ultimately unnecessary, return to Themyscira. But once this sojourn is out of the way, the rest of Wonder Woman 1984 's whopping two-and-a-half hour runtime flies by.

More than 60 years after the events of Wonder Woman , Diana ( Gal Gadot , as dignified and noble-browed as ever, though struggling with some of the nuance that the role demands) has fully assimilated to the world of men, but hasn't really been able to truly fit in beyond saving various children from runaway cars or stopping jewelry store robberies at the mall. Instead, she goes about her days in a kind of lonely haze, dutifully continuing to protect mankind, but nothing more. But this all changes with the aforementioned jewelry store robbery at the mall — a wonderfully corny, achingly '80s sequence that escalates into Looney Tunes -style escapades — which reveals the shop to be a front for a black market trade in valuable antiques.

One antique stone sculpture goes to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum where Diana works, and lands in the lap of her dowdy coworker Barbara Minerva (a fabulous Kristen Wiig ). Barbara doesn't make much of the rock, which she at first categorizes as a fake, but Diana's curiosity is piqued by some strange Latin writing on its base that promises the holder any wish they want. Later that night, Barbara, while examining the stone late at the office, unwittingly wishes to be just like Diana, after becoming immediately enamored with her glamorous and kindly coworker, who — unlike everyone else at the museum — actually sees her.

Barbara's slow transformation to a more confident and unexpectedly powerful woman will get compared to Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns — and certainly Wiig's endearingly insecure performance owes itself to that performance — but it's actually closer to a traditional superhero transformation sequence, akin to something out of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man . Wonder Woman 1984 plays Barbara's arc straight, and treats her as a kind of deuteragonist, complete with Barbara eagerly exploring her newfound super strength in very '80s aerobics gear. That is, until she gets eclipsed by Pedro Pascal 's fraudulent businessman, Maxwell Lord. Lord was the one who bought the rock off the black market, and cozies up to Barbara to attempt to use it to boost his failing oil business. He manages to take the wish-granting stone back, though not before Diana also unwittingly wishes for the return of her lost love, Steve Trevor ( Chris Pine , finally getting to show off his comedy chops).

Diana and Steve's romance served as the backbone of Wonder Woman and yet again it becomes the emotional crux of Wonder Woman 1984 , as Diana is shocked out of her apathy by the return of Steve, who, in a Heaven Can Wait -style twist, is revived in the body of another man. Pine is having an absolute blast at playing up the comedy of his fish-out-of-water role, and Wonder Woman 1984 delights in doing a reversal of Diana and Steve's dynamic from the first film. Diana attempts to dress Steve as a scarf-wearing European, Steve turns out to have awful fashion sense, and the pair of them flit about D.C., looking as gorgeous as the cityscape. In a standout scene that recalls the windswept sincerity of Richard Donner's Superman , Diana and Steve share a lovely moment in a jet plane underneath a fireworks display that could take your breath away.

But it's more than an excuse to see the two beautiful stars together again. Steve's return serves as a test for Diana, who realizes that the wishing stone is more of a monkey's paw, and that her reunion with Steve is causing her to lose her powers. this becomes a major problem when Maxwell Lord's control over the wishing stone starts to unseat world powers and bring about civilization-ending cataclysms.

If there ever was a role that played perfectly to Pascal's natural charisma, it's Maxwell Lord. The role requires a lot from Pascal — hamming it up in an over-the-top performance befitting the best '80s villains — who has to play someone simultaneously detestable, charming enough to get people to spill out their deepest wishes to him, and disarmingly sympathetic. While his Maxwell Lord is clearly created as a Trump analog, Wonder Woman 1984 does something much more interesting with his character, who is revealed to be an immigrant-turned-bankrupt businessman attempting to amass wealth in a distorted quest for the American Dream. It argues that even he is deserving of grace. Maybe we're all deserving of grace and forgiveness, even as we give into the worst excesses of capitalism and our own greed.

It's a startlingly kind message that drives Wonder Woman 1984 , somewhat buried beneath its world-ending stakes and ambitious narrative, but it's one that feels like a fitting counterpoint to the ideas that the first film put forward. Humanity is still worth saving despite its flaws and moral bankruptcy — that if we just ask, we can be forgiven. And no one would be happier to forgive us than Wonder Woman.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

User Reviews
The Cinematography is top notch .
The Score is good .
The chemistry between Gal and Chris was enjoyable .
Gal was at her worst . she did a decent job in the previous installement but this time she was way off the mark .
I love Chris Pine . He is an underrated actor and i enjoyed his previous movies but his comic timing in this movie fell flat .
The villains are cartoonish .They didn't get a good screen time to performe well but i can't blame them coz the writing sucks big time .
The CGI looks Really Bad .
The dialogues were cringe-worthy .
The action scenes were barely entertaining .
Lasso of truth? More like infinity flying power bulletproof magic Lasso
Main villian is a genie in a rock
Storyline is people wishing from said genie
Most climatic fight scene is in the trailer.... seriously.. its wonder woman fighting a leopard/ tiger thingy....
Main villian is defeated by saying 4 words
No emotional connection to characters, shallow and uninspiring. (literally if anyone died, you just wouldnt care.)
no consequence after saying those 4 words. things magically became normal
I dont get how is this even rated past a 5. Critics rating it 9?!?! Really suspicious. Must be some market manipulation.

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The Empty Spectacle of Wonder Woman 1984

This review originally ran earlier this month. We are republishing it on the occasion of Wonder Woman 1984 ’s Christmas Day premiere on HBO Max .

Wonder Woman, also known as Diana Prince, is one of the most dynamic of DC’s mainstay comic characters, but you’d never know it watching Wonder Woman 1984.

This sequel had almost everything going for it. Its empathetic predecessor is likely the most beloved and critically successful of the slate of beleaguered DC Comics films. Its time-skipping story offered a way to expand the superhero genre’s usual plot beats — which was desperately needed — and arrived buoyed by an excellent cast. Perhaps its lopsided universe was not perfect; there were lackluster villains and a noticeable absence of racial diversity and sensuality, and the sequel had to contend with a significant jump from WWI-era Europe into early 1980s Washington, D.C. But these issues were surmountable. Sadly, all that glittered in the franchise’s first outing is gone in Wonder Woman 1984. The disappointing sequel highlights not only the dire state of the live-action superhero genre in film, but the dire state of Hollywood filmmaking as a whole.

In Patty Jenkins’s candy-colored rendition of the ’ 80s, 1984’s Diana (Gal Gadot) finds herself lonely and isolated — both by choice and circumstance. As she begins to develop a friendship with a co-worker named Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), Diana’s life as both a museum curator and undercover superhero is disrupted by the arrival of what is best described as a magic rock. At first, it unknowingly grants Diana her great desire: to see Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) returned to life (sort of). The easily frazzled and comically clumsy Barbara gets some fringe benefits, too — she wishes upon the rock to be like Diana, suddenly achieving a power and confidence beyond her wildest dreams. But things take a turn when wannabe oil tycoon Maxwell Lord (an over-the-top and preening Pedro Pascal) strolls into the story with a rank ego and daddy issues. Barbara — whose story as Cheetah is well told in Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp’s run on the character that kicked off in 2016 — transforms from nascent friend to villain all too quickly. Meanwhile, the magic rock ends up setting the stage for major global unrest (and a genuinely weird accounting of Middle East politics).

What has attracted me to this character over the years — the femininity of her mythos and how it emphasizes the maternal, how her strength is conveyed in both fight scenes and more emotional exchanges — feels poorly developed in this utter mess of a plot. Superhero films too often rely on mystical items to fuel their narratives, but a magic rock that grants wishes like a gleaming monkey’s paw? It’s hackneyed, as is the stilted dialogue that unravels the story to begin with, starting with Diana’s voiceover outlining a thinly drawn exploration of her Amazon race. It is so stilted that when Diana finally vaults into action against a darkened sky, using her glowing lasso to ride lightning bolts, I felt not an ounce of awe.

Sure, Gadot and Pine once again have a charming chemistry, but his character’s return from the dead — in which he, basically, takes over some poor guy’s body — sparks more questions about the gaps in logic. And then there’s their utter sexlessness, an especially damning reminder of the way this genre fails to take into account one of the most beautiful aspects of being human. Instead, in 1984, Diana’s non-erotic yearning for Steve has become the entirety of her identity. Why? She doesn’t miss her Amazon sisters, whom she can never see again, more? It’s been about 70 years and she still hasn’t moved on from Steve? There’s something deeply sad and predictable about a female superhero so tied to a single man she’s willing to lose her powers for him. Romance has the potential to be heartwarming and expansive in superhero stories, but here it just feels claustrophobic. (I won’t even expand on a turn at the end ripped from a Hallmark movie, Christmas visuals and all, that was so galling I’m still not sure it happened.)

Jenkins, who brought a fresh eye to the fight choreography and stylings in the original Wonder Woman , seems now almost disenchanted with the world she’s helped bring to life. It’s cheerfully lit, as the ’ 80s period demands, but it’s neither visually intriguing nor beautiful. Wonder Woman 1984 overwhelms the senses, confusing largess with wonder. The action is hobbled by poor blocking; a strange spatial dynamic makes it so that you’re never exactly sure where characters are in the space of the scene. Especially egregious is an underwater sequence involving Barbara and Diana, in which Cheetah — who should feel fearsome — is undercut by uneven practical effects and chintzy CGI. In close-ups throughout the movie, Cheetah’s face and body feel poorly thought out, conjuring not even a sliver of the feral prowess of the character. In medium and long shots, particularly during a closing fight between the women, there’s a profound weightlessness to the blows owing to how Cheetah’s body is framed. There are a few cool touches to Jenkins’s filmmaking aesthetic — an intriguing spin on the invisible jet, Diana’s increased reliance on her lasso, her new ability to fly — but, overall, the promise of action sequence thrills feels unfulfilled.

In the end, the actors can’t save the story. Wiig really, really tries, too. She vamps it up with Pascal, each of them going for arch performances the script can’t match. The plot grows more tangled and confusing by the minute, as the film’s central relationships are overshadowed by unnecessary globetrotting, flashy role reversals, and poor world building (which mines the time setting for visual and sonic cues but little else. The story does nothing to explain exactly what Diana has been doing in the years since WWI or why she decided to ignore intervening global horrors she might have otherwise dismantled.) In the comics, Diana forms a curious bond with Barbara, whose work as an archaeologist and obsession with the Amazons adds an intriguing layer to their friendship. Little of that transfers to the film; the sequel continues the franchise’s earnest streak, but without a stronger narrative it feels unearned and, worse yet, calculated. Gal Gadot admittedly remains a warm presence in the franchise, and Chris Pine does his best with the story. It makes sense that Steve and Diana would become positioned against Barbara and Maxwell, with his murkily defined goals of domination. But why not lean into the best aspect of the preceding story: the Amazons? Why bring Robin Wright back if you’re not going to give her another juicy action scene? Blessedly, the movie is free of empty “girl power” slogans and mortifying needle drops, but is that enough? I want intrigue! I want grace! With the full might of the modern Hollywood apparatus and an ungodly amount of money, is this really the best we can get? The movie insults by offering scraps and making us pretend it’s a meal.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a turning point in the history of Hollywood’s business, what with Warner Bros. banking big on the hope that the film’s Christmas Day release will be the push its (admittedly good) streaming service, HBO Max, needs (in the U.S., at least). But the film is indicative of the larger pitfalls of an aging superhero genre. Watching Wonder Woman 1984, I couldn’t help but think of the utter hollowness of representation and how corporations have adopted the language and posture of political movements in order to sell back to us a vacant rendition of the change we actually want. In many ways, studios have trained audiences to view the bombast of their blockbusters as possessing inherent worth — especially when they place reflections of us on the big screen. This isn’t good filmmaking. And as more and more exciting directors get caught up in the gears of this mammoth genre, I can’t help but reflect on how their talents would be better utilized elsewhere. If only Hollywood gave them real control over stories, rather than treating their work as mere conduits for content the studio can replicate and sell.

*A version of this article appears in the December 21, 2020, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

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Godzilla x Kong Sequel Is Moving Ahead With Shang-Chi and Wonder Woman 1984 Writer

The MonsterVerse will continue with a new Godzilla and Kong movie, which will be written by MCU writer Dave Callaham.

Dave Callaham is set to write for the next MonsterVerse film, following the success of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire .
The MonsterVerse franchise is thriving, with the recent film becoming the second-highest grossing movie of 2024.
The new movie's success has spurred more MonsterVerse projects, including a second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

The MonsterVerse has drafted in the writer for the next movie in the Godzilla and Kong franchise in the form of Dave Callaham (as per The Hollywood Reporter ). Best known for his work on the MCU’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , Callaham will have the task of crafting a new story to build on the success of this year’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire , which is currently the second-highest grossing movie of 2024.

Shang-Chi was one of the most highly praised movies of the MCU’s Phase 4, and with the MonsterVerse having veered into Marvel-style action in its latest installment, Callaham could well be a perfect choice to capitalize on the success of this formula. His other credits include working on The Expendables, 2021’s Mortal Kombat reboot, and the heavily criticized Wonder Woman 1984 . However, he came back strong as the co-writer of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse , which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature .

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire had all the makings of a blockbuster hit, but after 2023’s year of box office disappointments there was never a guarantee that it would manage to pull off a colossal haul. However, the film surpassed projections , resulting in a $548 million box office, which makes it the second-highest grossing MonsterVerse movie, and a sign that the franchise is only going to get bigger in the future. The new movie will head into production along with the second season of Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters , which was green-lit recently.

The MonsterVerse is Growing with More Projects to be Announced

The success of The New Empire has awakened something at Legendary. In total, the MonsterVerse has evolved into a lucrative franchise, accumulating $2.5 billion at the global box office since Gareth Edward’s Godzilla debuted in 2014. As well as the sixth movie in the franchise now moving forward, and the second season of Monarch in development, Apple TV+’s head of international development Morgan Wandel previously teased even further expansion to the streaming arm of the franchise. He said:

“Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has left an indelible imprint on the hearts, minds and imaginations of audiences around the world, led by the brilliance of Chris, Matt, Kurt, Wyatt and the incredibly gifted talented cast and creative team. We couldn’t be more excited for viewers to not only have the chance to experience even more thrills in season two, but to embark on epic, new journeys in the franchise, as we expand Legendary’s Monsterverse.”

Godzilla x Kong Smashes New Box Office Milestone Amid High Praise from Hideo Kojima

What impressed many fans about Monarch was how the show focused on the human side of the MonsterVerse coin that the movies have often pushed aside in favor of big monster action sequences. The first season returned to several moments from earlier in the franchise, including scenes from the 2014 movie, and its final shot revealed that the second season will be bringing Kong to the party and could fill in several gaps between the events of Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla v Kong .

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is still playing in theaters, while Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is available on Apple TV+.

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Wonder Woman 1984 movie review (2020)
Wonder Woman 1984. When " Wonder Woman " came out in 2017, it was a thrilling breath of fresh air, both within the darker realm of DC Comics adaptations and the larger context of bloated summer blockbusters. Director Patty Jenkins ' film offered equal parts muscle and heart, with a perfect tonal balance between transporting action and ...
Wonder Woman 1984
Sheri Flanders Chicago Reader Wonder Woman 1984 is a technicolor, lighthearted romp through the era of Jazzercise, big hair, and even bigger shoulder pads. Feb 1, 2021 Full Review Rafer Guzman ...
Wonder Woman 1984
Full Review | Oct 19, 2022. Wonder Woman 1984 is the bombastic, big-hearted blockbuster we need after the terrors of 2020, even if it can't quite surpass its subversive predecessor. Full Review ...
Wonder Woman 1984 Review
For all its constant callbacks to the '80s, Wonder Woman 1984 remains distinctly contemporary in runtime; like so many modern comic book flicks, it runs past the two-and-a-half-hour mark. While ...
'Wonder Woman 1984' Review: It's Not About What We Deserve
Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Eventually, the movie gets down to its 1984 business, and the pace drifts into lethargy. The story packs in a lot of stuff and characters but without purpose or urgency. (It ...
'Wonder Woman 1984' Movie Review
Wonder Woman 1984 is, in so many ways, a more ambitious, expansive movie than its predecessor, tackling more in the way of dramatic chaos, big feelings, and convoluted archaeological villainy. But ...
Wonder Woman 1984 is the massive movie we've been waiting for: Review
It's the U.S. of A. in the year 1984! Diana Prince (a.k.a. Wonder Woman) is living in Washington, D.C., where she works at the Smithsonian and spends her immortal life in quiet loneliness. She ...
'Wonder Woman 1984' review: DC's best movie in a decade saves ...
Dec. 15, 2020. Like a true superhero, Wonder Woman 1984 swoops in at just the right moment when we need saving most. It might be set in the '80s, but the Patty Jenkins sequel takes aim at the ...
Wonder Woman 1984 Review
Wonder Woman 1984 Review. In 1984, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) is living a quiet life in Washington and discreetly helping people as Wonder Woman. That is until a scheme from charlatan businessman ...
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Movie Review
Where Wonder Woman 1984 flounders a bit is in the sheer length of the movie, which clocks in at two hours and 30 minutes long. Jenkins' sequel is a sprawling superhero movie with epic action scenes and plenty of character-driven heart, but its pacing gets bogged down in thematic minutiae, the importance of which doesn't become clear until later in the film - sometimes much later.
'Wonder Woman 1984' Has a Surprisingly Deep Message
Wonder Woman 1984 has plenty of goofiness—the aforementioned magic wishing stone, an action sequence at the mall with the aesthetics of a cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, and, in Cheetah, a ...
'Wonder Woman 1984' Reviews: What the Critics Are Saying
And while "Wonder Woman 1984" has earned an 89% rating from Rotten Tomatoes after 71 critic reviews, many commentators noted that, while fun, the movie often felt overindulgent or cliché ...
Wonder Woman 1984 review
Wonder Woman 1984 review - the superheroine 2020 needs. Gal Gadot's warrior queen strikes just the right tone of hope and dynamism in Patty Jenkins's stylish, empowering sequel. T his long ...
Wonder Woman 1984
As superhero sequels go, especially DC superhero sequels, Wonder Woman 1984 is pretty top-shelf. It carries on Diana of Themyscira's story with aplomb—casting satirical winks and chuckles at the 1980s and all of that decade's quirky, parachute-pants-and-fanny-pack glory. It's filled with thrilling action sequences, aptly adorned with a ...
'Wonder Woman 1984' Review: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
This article is more than 3 years old. 'Wonder Woman 1984' is a mixed bag. Wonder Woman was something of an anomaly when it hit theaters way back in the Before Times. For one thing, it was quite ...
'Wonder Woman 1984' review: A gloriously overstuffed sequel
By Justin Chang Film Critic. Dec. 15, 2020 9 AM PT. The lessons of "Wonder Woman 1984" are a bit like the movie itself: familiar, direct and winningly sincere. "No true hero is born from ...
'Wonder Woman 1984' Review
Gal Gadot and, yes, Chris Pine return in 'Wonder Woman 1984,' Patty Jenkins' sequel to the 2017 hit about the Amazonian warrior princess, this time facing Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig as adversaries.
Wonder Woman 1984 Movie Review
Kids say ( 81 ): Campier and less revolutionary than the original, this long but entertaining sequel still shows the many ways women can be strong, heroic, and smart. (Though it does suggest that some of that hinges on being able to pull off high heels.) Wonder Woman 1984 also highlights the dangers of greed and excess.
'Wonder Woman 1984' Review: A Startlingly Kind, Delightfully Cheesy
Wonder Woman 1984 plays Barbara's arc straight, and treats her as a kind of deuteragonist, complete with Barbara eagerly exploring her newfound super strength in very '80s aerobics gear.
Wonder Woman 1984
Wonder Woman 1984 (also known as WW84) is a 2020 American superhero film based on the DC character Wonder Woman.Produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, Atlas Entertainment, and The Stone Quarry, and distributed by Warner Bros., it is a standalone sequel to the 2017 film Wonder Woman and the ninth film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film was directed by Patty Jenkins from a ...
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Storyline: Set in 1984, Wonder Woman tries to save the world once again from an unlikely enemy while she still seems to be thinking about Chris Pine. Runtime stands at 2,5h which is too long but the pace of the film is good. CGI is good throughout the movie and most the action scenes are well made.
Wonder Woman 1984
Chris Stuckmann reviews Wonder Woman 1984, starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen. Directed by Patty Jenkins.
'Wonder Woman 1984' Review: An Empty Spectacle
movie review Dec. 25, 2020. The Empty Spectacle of Wonder Woman 1984. By Angelica Jade Bastién ... Wonder Woman 1984 is a turning point in the history of Hollywood's business, what with Warner ...
Godzilla x Kong Sequel Is Moving Ahead With Shang-Chi and Wonder Woman
The MonsterVerse has drafted in the writer for the next movie in the Godzilla and Kong franchise in the form of Dave Callaham (as per The Hollywood Reporter).Best known for his work on the MCU's ...
Wonder Women (2022 film)
Wonder Women is a 2022 Indian English-language film directed by Anjali Menon and produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Ashi Dua Sara, starring Nadiya Moidu, Nithya Menen, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Sayanora Philip, Archana Padmini and Amruta Subhash in the lead roles.. The trailer of the film was released on 3 November and started streaming on 18 November through SonyLIV.

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