I do love a superhero movie and must admit, the thought of getting lost in another world at the end of 2020, was just what I needed. So off I went to Wonder Woman 1984. Being of a certain age I did watch the original Wonder Woman on TV, so it was with some excitement that I entered the cinema.
Wonder Woman 1984 opens with a flashback to Diana Prince when she was a little girl (played brilliantly by Lilly Aspell). A gifted athlete, young Diana is attempting to prove herself against three adult female warriors in an Olympic-style competition. I won’t tell you the outcome, but we are treated to our first lesson about how to define success.
Flash forward to an adult Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) on her first day working in a museum. There she is introduced to mild mannered Barbara Minerva (Kirsten Wiig) who is cataloguing ancient objects, one of which is a strange looking piece of art. We soon find out that this object has the power to grant anyone their wish. after the year we’ve had I can imagine a lot of people would be lining up for this.
Enter Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), an outlooked megalomaniac, the worst kind. Instead of simply spending time with his young son, Lord tries to impress him by becoming the most successful man in the world. Hellbent on world domination he sets out to steal the art piece, thereby ignoring the simple needs of his son… insert lesson number two.
Along the way we see various people across the world use the art piece to grant their ultimate wish. This includes Minerva who wants to be more like Diana. Even Wonder Woman herself dreams of having her dead boyfriend Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) return.
When Trevor does return we see him coming to terms with modern technology (escalators) and fashion. Think Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but down played to match the fashion-sense of a man named Steve Trevor.
For the next two hours the movie outlays a mass of back to back action sequences as Wonder Woman, assisted by Trevor naturally, tracks down Maxwell Lord.
Along the way she is confronted by Barbara Minerva, who in her quest to be more like Diana has morphed into a powerful cheetah-like animal. Minerva may have got the Wonder Woman powers bit right, but her cat-like appearance is more bag-lady than the 80’s wide lapelled chic of Diana Prince.
As I sat through the second of the movie, I pondered:
- The special effects and the stunt people must have had a ball.
- While Gal Gadot did a good job in the somewhat daunting role of Wonder Woman, the storyline let her down.
- The second half saw the movie start to unravel. The jumble of action sequences looked like they’d thrown everything into the storyline to fill out the time. Did it really need to be over two hours? Could a tighter edit have solved these issues?
- The look back at some of the fashions was fun, particularly those worn by Diana, which were simply noted, rather than pointed out through a poor man’s Pretty Woman sequence.
- The messages about success, family, love and being careful what you wish for were clear, without the need to be preached at in case we’d missed them. Audiences are also given plenty of opportunities to grasp the reference to American politics.
- For me the best part of the movie was the performance of Lilly Aspell as the young Diana, who. I believe did all her own stunts. Can’t wait to see what she does as she grows up.
For more information go to Event cinema.
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