–Wonder Woman 1984 is not very good.

–Pluses: the cast is still very charming, and a few of the fight scenes are effective.

–Setting: In the original Wonder Woman, the WWI setting contributes to a hard bleakness which effectively contracts with the main character’s naivete and optimism and it sets up a reasonably effective conflict with a villain. I sense that they selected the 1980s out of some observation of rampant consumerism in the 1980s, but the only actual observation on the 1980s the movie was actually committed to was that people dressed weird in almost exactly the same way as in any other 1980s period piece. There are no points at which the 1980s setting contributes to anything interesting, and several where the story pauses to focus on how crazily people dressed in the 1980s.

–The only character in this movie who does not have the weight of the 1980s crushing down on him is the homeless Jiminy Cricket guy.

–The two main cast additions are Pablo Pascal (Oberyn Martell from Game of Thrones) as a sleazy conman and a Kristin Wiig completely unbelievable as either a lifeless wallflower or someone who wished for Wonder Woman’s charisma and verve. Somehow refusing to go back on turning into a cat-person is not the least believable part of this character. This character is such an inversion of reality that only a quadruple-negative sentence can express how bonkers she is.

–Maxwell Lord is theoretically inspired by 1980s businessvillains like Gordon Gekko but has none of the abrasive charm, “in your face” quality, or menace to pull this off. He is, as he admits to his son, more of a loser than anything else. This is not the stuff of dramatic legend.

–We’re told a few times that the Minerva character before the wish is humorous, witty, and fun to be around. Don’t believe this pep talk, it’s all lies. The closest she gets to a laugh line is that reading a lot of books somehow cured her eyesight.

–The movie completely derails after Maxwell Lord meets with the President. Up to this point the dumbest moment I had been prepared for was someone eventually turning into a cheetah and the dumbest thing I had personally witnessed was a 1910s intelligence officer fail to identify a wastebasket. Get ready to get blasted in the face with a 1980s-style cartoon where one of Koopa’s brats wished for America. What ensues… I think the dumbest superhero plots up to this point have been an evil CEO releasing an obviously fatal cosmetic in Catwoman or a Spider-Man movie where Curtis Connors tried turning everybody into lizards. Wonder Woman 1984 dares to ask: why choose between a cartoonishly evil CEO and someone turning herself into a cat? It’s the 1980s.


–Maxwell’s wishes can be revoked by the recipient, so wouldn’t it be in his incentive to NOT screw people he needs on board? E.g. when Minerva asks to be an apex predator, my instinct would run towards “humans ARE apex predators” rather than “make my most committed soldier into a cat monster.”


–Hundreds of nuclear weapons suddenly appearing are enough to cause a country to start a nuclear war. Weirdly this is not THAT far off from the Turkish or Cuban missile crises. It’s still not as unbelievable as the Minerva character.

–“Firing a particle counts as touching” is one of the lamest workarounds for a superpower limitation I’ve seen in a while. Among other alternatives, the 1980s had several human chains with millions of participants (e.g. 2 million people in the Baltic Way calling for independence from the Soviet Union or 5 million for Hands Across America). I think millions of people gathering for a cause, particularly under fear of government suppression, is more inherently interesting than touching someone with a particle.

There’s a crazy amount of contrivance going on:
–Just randomly running into Maxwell Lord on the road out of Cairo and instantly recognizing him.
–The first person to stumble upon Minerva beating up her assailant happens to be the one person in town that she regularly speaks to.
–Normally I might complain about a 1910s pilot finding a 1980s fighter jet and managing to fly it without issue. This is worse than average for an action movie but NOT for a romance. Also, he has a wisdom goddess with him and this is well within the realm of “a wizard did it.” Also, have I mentioned it’s a romance?