What’s It About
Diana Prince lives quietly among mortals in the vibrant, sleek 1980s — an era of excess driven by the pursuit of having it all. Though she’s come into her full powers, she maintains a low profile by curating ancient artifacts and only performing heroic acts incognito. But soon, Diana will have to muster all of her strength, wisdom, and courage as she finds herself squaring off against Maxwell Lord and the Cheetah, a villainess who possesses superhuman strength and agility.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
After a two year wait, the much-anticipated sequel to 2017’s blockbuster hit Wonder Woman, is finally here. So, was it worth the wait? That depends on who you ask. It also depends on what part of the movie you’re talking about. First and foremost, this is a comic book movie. Therefore, you can not use “real” logic to try and explain any of what happens. For example, I have no idea how old Wonder Woman is supposed to be. They’ve shown her as a little girl and as an adult but never as a teen. But considering Amazonians’ age very slowly, Diana could have been a hundred years old as a little kid. This also explains her training and why her skills are so good (years of practice). Ok, so that can explain most of what she does, and in the film, the first half was great. You see her as a kid during a Roman colosseum-like event as a competitor against the adult warriors. Then she’s an adult stopping criminal’s in the ’80s at a shopping mall. Apparently, she has kept an unexplained shallow profile for years. Her morals are her driving force but other than her faith in humanity, her whole purpose was never directly explained. Wonder Woman’s villains were a quasi-friend named Barbara Minerva and a power-hungry Max Lord. Barbera, as we all know, becomes Cheetah. We know this because every write-up regarding this movie says so. They had to because nowhere in the film does she ever go by the name Cheetah. The other bad guy, Max Lord, was a man looking for power, control, and respect. Similarly, as with Barbera, he wanted something he never had but felt he deserved it. Therefore, in retrospect, neither “villain” was actually evil, just filled with hardships and a life of bad luck they could not bounce back from. That’s basically all you need to know about WW84. As I stated earlier, this is a comic book movie. The main issue is that the writers/producers took “comic book” a bit too literal. The things that take place in this movie would be sufficient for an animated feature, but in a live-action film, it all seems stupid, and so far from reality, it’s impossible to engulf yourself within the story. Once again, the first part of the film is excellent, but when Diana and Steve get together to fight the wrong that is happening worldwide, the film’s entire dynamic changes. Things change from a well made comic themed film to a cheap parody of itself. The fight scenes are impossible to be believed, Wonder Woman’s speed could rival that of The Flash, and her magic lasso has to be sentient. I would have no problem believing this stuff in the comic, but seeing real people on the big screen (or your TV) do these outlandish things is only entertaining to young kids. Actually, any kid with the smallest amount of common sense will question nearly everything in the second half of this movie. Overall, that doesn’t mean Wonder Woman 1984 is not entertaining. It challenges the seriousness of how much effort Hollywood is willing to put into creating future films of this type. This movie’s saving grace is Diana’s pure innocence, along with her ability to incite a positive moral fabric of everyone she comes in contact with. Sadly, there needs to be more for this genre to continue.
OUR RATING – A NEEDS TO BE BETTER 6.5
MEDIA
- Genre – Comic Book
- Street date
- Digital – March 16th, 2021
- DVD/BluRay/4K – March 30th, 2021
- Video – 1080p
- Screen size – 2.39:1
- Sound – English: Dolby Atmos, English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1, French: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles – English SDH, Dutch, Danish, French, Finnish, Polish, Spanish, Romanian, Swedish
Extras
- The Making Of Wonder Woman 1984: Expanding The Wonder (HD, 37 Mins.) – A better than average EPK, complete with cast and crew interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and rehearsals that focus on the themes, tone, characters, stunts, cameos, and more. The funniest thing about this bonus feature is how everyone involved constantly says how cool and amazing every storyline and piece of dialogue is, which of course the final result was anything but that. Still, this is a great little feature that explores the making of the film.
- Gal And Kristen: Friends Forever (HD, 5 Mins.) – The cast and crew discuss the relationship between Diana and Barbara in the film, along with some minor flashes of the two actresses having fun on set, much to the crew’s dismay as they were constantly making each other laugh and singing songs during filming, complete with a short original music video of their friendship.
- Small But Mighty (HD, 11 Mins.) – Perhaps the best bonus feature on this release is the exploration of the young actress who played the young Wonder Woman, named Lilly Aspel. She was around 10 years old when her scenes were filmed and she’s going on 25, in that she did every last one of her own stunts and conversed with the other actors and crew like an adult. There’s a reason she has her very own extra here. She’s awesome.
- Scene Study: The Open Road (HD, 6 Mins.) – A deeper look at what went into behind the scenes on that particular vehicle chase in the middle of the desert with tanks, missiles, and Wonder Woman.
- Scene Study: The Mall (HD, 5 Mins.) – Another extensive look at how the crew and actors shot the opening mall sequence.
- Gal And Krissy Having Fun (HD, 1 Min.) – That little music video mentioned above of Gadot and Wiig having fun and singing on the set in its entirety.
- Meet The Amazons (HD, 22 Mins.) – From the DC Fandom 2020 conference, this is a virtual Zoom interview with the director and the stunt-women of the film who played the Amazons discussing working on the movie.
- Black Gold Informercial (HD, 2 Mins.) – The funny infomercial from the film, starring Adam Pascal in its entirety.
- Gag Reel (HD, 7 Mins.) – A genuine funny montage of flubbed lines, props not working right, and Chris Pine doing impressions of Gal Gadot.
- Wonder Woman 1984 Retro Remix (HD, 2 Mins.) – A cool trailer mixed like it was made in 1984 with the original Wonder Woman song. It’s a shame this wasn’t added into the theatrical cut