Leave it to DC of all companies to deliver one of the oddest and most exuberant superhero films in years in one of the oddest years in years. Patty Jenkins (“Monster,” “Wonder Woman (2017)”) is here with the follow up to her 2017 hit, and “Wonder Woman 1984” is a bigger, bolder, brasher, and more experimental film, for better and worse.
Gal Gadot (“Wonder Woman (2017),” “Ralph Breaks the Internet”) and Chris Pine (“Star Trek (2009, “Hell or High Water”) are the sole returning cast members here, and they both continue in the excellence they established in the previous film. Gadot is still a wonderfully calm and powerful heroine, but she’s more intelligent and less innocent in her second outing. Likewise, Pine plays with a bit more wide-eyed optimism (thanks to plot circumstances I won’t spoil here) than the strong jawed soldier seen before.
The two other leads are Pedro Pascal (“Narcos,” “The Mandalorian”) as the slimy TV personality Maxwell Lord and Kristen Wiig (“Bridesmaids,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”) as Barbara Minerva. Wiig sells her first action film role with confidence and bravado that slowly evolves as the film continues, allowing her character to remain believable and sympathetic without losing the gradual change needed to sell her arc.
Pascal, meanwhile, is a complete force of nature. His character of Maxwell Lord is an interesting one from the start, but as the film progresses, he becomes more devious and maligned in increasingly interesting ways. His arc definitely isn’t what it would appear to be at the start, and by the time things end, Pascal has given what might be one of his strongest performances yet.
While Pascal’s arc may be unconventional, that goes for the movie as a whole. After a not bad, but just out of place, prologue we leap back into the world of Diana Prince and the year 1984. From there the story takes several twists and turns, delivering much less action than one would expect and a lot more talking, character development, and exposition.
When the punches do fly, the action is choreographed excellently and with gusto. Gadot sails through these sequences, flying through the air and toppling enemies of all sizes with skill and perfected grace. The CGI work is also impressive, and even the clearly worst bit of it thankfully takes place at night, making it easy to hide.
This is also an expansively colorful film, with bright reds, greens, blues, yellows, and much more popping in every frame. Maybe it’s the 80s sheen, but even the scenes in darkened environments still pop with vibrancy and color. This further extends to the music, which imbues the first film’s trumpets and guitars with synths and 80s beats.
It’s difficult to talk about what makes this film truly interesting without going into spoilers. While the action, dialogue, acting, music, etc. is all great, that alone wouldn’t make for a film worth talking about, only a movie that passes the bar. Where “1984” goes above and beyond is creating a plot that is intrinsically tied to its characters.
Jenkins and her co-writers Geoff Johns (“Smallville,” “Aquaman”) and David Callaham (“Ant-Man,” “Zombieland: Double Tap”) have created a story that all comes back to choices and consequences and puts some truly tempting decisions in front of every character, good and bad alike. It makes for a film that takes some interesting turns and prevents a feeling of sameness and predictability. Whether or not you think it all works or if it’s all too cheesy for its own good, that’s up for debate. But Jenkins and her writers took a big swing on a less straight forward and more bizarre narrative and it largely succeeds.
This even comes down to the ending, which thankfully avoids DC’s particularly bad habit of turning interesting plots into big grey CGI monster fights. It is a superhero film that somehow maintains a high level of general enjoyability and fun without losing its seriousness. It keeps its sense of hope without cheapening the danger and stakes, which is no small feat.
Instead of sticking to tried and true tropes, “1984” instead chooses a larger, more escapist route to provide a colorful and hopeful experience. This is a film that plays fast and loose with magic, wishes, hopes, and dreams without cheapening the journeys its characters go on. It’s all a kind of extravagant window dressing to continue to address Diana as a growing and evolving hero and the world she wants to protect. It even ends in a profoundly hopeful and un-blockbuster-like way and it’s one of the film’s absolute best moments.
This is a long film, an extravagant one, and a colorful one. Those who loved the grittiness or the realism of the first film will likely have already been lost by the rainbow drenched posters, but those who decide to stay will be treated to a thoroughly satisfying escapist fantasy adventure, with one of the most varied and interesting plots in a blockbuster in quite some time. It isn’t perfect but it sure is wonderful. 4/5
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