Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on a different classic from the Nerdosphere.  This week Dave and Patrick review the highly anticipated Wonder Woman 1984, released on HBO Max!

The Flick:  Wonder Woman 1984

What’s it About:  Decades after the events of Wonder Woman, Diana Prince is living a quiet life as a curator at the Smithsonian, secretly fighting crime when she can.  When a mysterious artifact arrives and falls into the wrong hands, Wonder Woman must rise again to prevent Earth’s destruction.

Metacritic Score: 59

The Nerds’ Take on Wonder Woman 1984:

Patrick:  After months of delays, the world finally saw the release of Wonder Woman 1984, both in theaters and, in an unprecedented move by Warner Brothers, on HBO Max.  I don’t know if it was the hype or what, but for me Wonder Woman 1984 just fell a little flat.  That’s not to say this is a bad movie.  It’s not.  It just was not the home run I thought it would be.

Wonder Woman 1984 takes place nearly 70 years after the events of the original in the year…well…1984.  Diana Prince lives in Washington DC as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.  She also fights crime as Wonder Woman in her spare time, asking those she helps to keep secret what they have seen.  It is during one of these crime fighting stints that Diana foils a robbery and rescues a large number of stolen ancient artifacts.  Some of these artifacts are brought back to the institute to be researched and cataloged by meek staff member Barbara Minerva.  Of the item recovered, a small idol is found that grants one wishes for whoever holds it.  Both Barbara and Diana make wishes: Diana for the return of her lost love Steve Trevor, and Barbara to be like Diana.

Of course, this being a superhero film, their wishes are granted.  Barbara suddenly becomes an object of attention as well as gaining Diana’s other worldly powers.  Diana, on the other hand, has Steve returned to her in a fashion.  We learn that Steve’s, soul (personality?) is in the body of a local man living in DC.  It’s very Quantum Leap.  Unbeknownst to both women these wishes come at a price.  Add to the mix struggling entrepreneur Maxwell Lord, the man who orchestrated the theft of the idol in the first place.  Lord convinces Minerva to give him the idol during a fundraising event.  Lord wishes to become the idol himself, thus granting him the ability to grant the wishes of others.  It is here we also learn of the idol’s price as the idol also takes what is most valuable to the wisher.  In Diana’s case her superpowers and in Barbara’s her humanity.  As Maxwell uses his newfound powers to gain money and power for his failing business, he quickly devolves into wanting all the power in the world.  Naturally it is up to Wonder Woman to try and stop him, but the only way to regain her powers is to renounce her wish or somehow kill Maxwell.

The story here is pretty solid.  Patty Jenkins returned to direct and the themes of excess and honesty as a virtue are valuable.  She really dove into the 80s aesthetic with bright colors, synthesized music, and even a fun little poking a mall culture.  Where this movie fell flat for me is in the uneven storytelling and the overall pacing of the film.  The first hour plus of the film really dragged for me.  The plot seems to take ages to progress anywhere to the point I became a little bored.  There is so much focus on Diana’s desperation to have Steve, which it bogs down what I think could have been some great development of Barbara Minerva’s character.  For example, we know Barbara is supposed to be this kind person who wants to be recognized for who she is, but we know this because of two brief scenes: one at a lunch where Diana compliments Barbara as a good person and two when Barbara is nice to homeless people.  That’s it.  As Barbara descends into losing her kind heart, it just didn’t feel earned because the audience barely saw it.  But thank goodness we got that five minute montage of how funny 80s clothing was.  I had the same problem with how the big bad story was resolved.  The message itself was a good one: everyone is struggling and a wish really won’t fix it.  In fact, it could do more harm than good.  But the resolution to the problem is so quick and, dare I say, easy I didn’t really feel the stakes were all that high.  It all left me wanting more from the film.

The cast for Wonder Woman 1984 is dynamite.  Gal Gadot returns as Diana and carries the standard for moving the film forward, I just wish her character hadn’t been so anchored by her emotional attachment to Steve.  Chris Pine plays the man out of time bit very well and I do like how his character was brought back.  The little kid joy he shows when he gets to fly a “modern” plane was a real highlight for me.  I can’t help but be a little annoyed though that we had to run the “Steve Sacrifices himself for Diana” trope was again just a little too easy.  The best two actors in this move though are Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal.  Let’s start with Wiig.  I thought she did great with the material she was given to work with.  She’s sweet, self-deprecating, and good at her job.  I just hate that Barbara reminded me of Jamie Foxx’s Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  The unnoticed good-person-turned evil trop is just that, a trope.  It felt tired and I Wiig has the acting chops to do more with a character like Barbara Minerva.  I hope she is back in the franchise’s next installment.  Pascal’s Max Lord is terrific.  He plays Lord’s desperation and then megalomania amazingly well.  But he really shines when Lord is pouring on the charisma to get what he want.  Pascal is charming and slimy all wrapped up into one villainous package.  It works so, so well.  Between this role and his turn as Din in The Mandalorian, Pascal is easily a winner of 2020.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a solid film, it just didn’t blow me away.  To steal from my good friend Greg DeMarco, I feel the same way about this movie as I did watching Iron Man 3.  It was good enough, but it didn’t really elevate the bar.

Patrick’s Rating: 3.12/5.0

Dave It took almost the entirety of 2020 but we finally got a big blockbuster movie to watch. Better late then never. Wonder Woman 1984 debuted in theaters and on HBO Max, simultaneously, on Christmas Day. The sequel to 2017’s highly successful Wonder Woman represented a major paradigm shift on the part of Warner Media and HBO Max to abandon hope of debuting the movie in the traditional pre-pandemic manner and offered fans the opportunity to brave the wilds of the theaters or stream the movie safely at home. The debate as to this strategy will rage on for many months. But the real question is this: Is Wonder Woman 1984 any good? In a word, yes.

I will try and keep this review as spoiler free as I can even though anyone listening to this week’s podcast likely had much of the movie spoiled anyway. But speaking in generalities, Wonder Woman 1984 does a lot of things right. It is a much more colorful and upbeat movie than the original, as it effectively captured the visual feel and vibes of the 1980’s. One of the big questions about the movie, based solely on the trailers, was how they were going to bring Steve Trevor back to life. When last we saw Steve, he perished in a plane explosion near the end of Wonder Woman. Dianna’s loss of her one true love haunted her throughout the years and her guilt over his death was used to maximum effectiveness by Bruce Wayne in Justice League. Still, it was clear from the trailers that Steve Trevor was quite alive. I must say, it was rather clever the way that DC/Warner brought Steve Trevor back to life in this movie. It was certainly much more believable and done infinitely better than how Superman was resurrected in Justice League. There are also many little nods to Wonder Woman fans throughout the movie, including the introduction of the invisible jet. Then there is Cheetah, a complex character that we get introduced to in the film. Cheetah was a much more accessible and effective villain than Ares was in the first movie and infinitely more interesting, especially as her evolution throughout the movie progressed.

At its core, Wonder Woman 1984 is as much a love story as it is a movie about the power of the truth. In this respect, the sequel exceeds the original. Despite being a goddess, of sorts, we get to see the human, and dare I say selfish, side of Diana Prince. We can easily empathize with her as she steadfastly refuses to let go of her dreams of a life with Steve, even in the face of the perpetual lessening of her powers and invulnerability. It is the one thing she wants and for as much as she has sacrificed for mankind, why can’t she have just this one thing? It is an easy sentiment to understand. Meanwhile, Barbara Minerva gradually loses her humanity as she descends further and further into the Cheetah persona. The Yin and Yang of these two personalities is really what drives the movie forward.

And yet, there are some definite problems with the movie. It is quite long, clocking in at 2 hours and 35 minutes. Much of the time, there does not seem to be a whole lot going on and the plot gets a bit too complex for its own good. DC purists, like me, will also find a lot to complain about here. Granted, there is no hard and fast rule that says a comic-based movie has to religiously follow a specific story arc. Infinity War and Endgame are prime examples of this. Still, one of the biggest problems I had with the movie was the introduction of Maxwell Lord as the big bad and done in a manner that bore very little resemblance to the Maxwell Lord from the comics. In the comics, Max has mind control abilities and powers and the pre-Flashpoint version of him is heavily involved with Wonder Woman. But not in the way he was portrayed in this movie. Also, the wishing stone that resurrects Steve Trevor (sort of) also gives Barbara Minerva her powers, which is not really true to Cheetah’s origin story. Then there is Steve Trevor himself, who is alive and well throughout the comics and whose relationship with Diana is significantly more complex than portrayed in either the first or second movies.

It is not just those highly nerd-based quibbles though. The movie just doesn’t always flow like one might want it to. Wonder Woman clocked in at 2 hours 21 minutes, which is not much of a difference, time wise, from the sequel. But the first movie just felt so much tighter, without wasted scenes or wasted moments. Wonder Woman 1984 is a bit too loose in many places and this hurts the movie more than it helps. There are intangibles involved here that just make the sequel fall flat in some places. But there are many highly enjoyable moments to be had in this movie and even though it is not on the same level as the first film, it is still a no-brainer for any DC, Wonder Woman, or super-hero fan in general.

As far as Warner Media and HBO Max’s big experiment, it would appear to be a success. According to Screen Engine, Wonder Woman 1984 was already watched more in its first week than any other 2020 SVOD movie, including Disney Pixar’s magnificent Soul, which dropped at roughly the same time. HBO Max subscriptions are up with many saying they signed up solely so they could watch Wonder Woman 1984. Theatrically, its numbers are better than anticipated. All in all, the Wonder Woman franchise is doing quite well, so much so that Wonder Woman 3 has, allegedly, already been green lit. If you are asking me if Wonder Woman 1984 is good enough to warrant an HBO Max subscription, I resoundingly say yes, especially when you consider that Zack Snyder’s Justice League is just a few months away and there is a ton of content already on HBO Max. And if you already have HBO Max, but have not watched Wonder Woman 1984 yet, I really do not know what you are waiting for. It is not as good as the first movie, but it damn sure is good enough.

Dave’s Rating: 3.75/5

Overall Nerds’ Rating for Wonder Woman 1984: 3.43/5.0