Wonder Woman 1984 | Movie Review
Good morning ladies and gents of the X-Army, I hope each and every one of you are good. Today I will be reviewing Wonder Woman 1984 or WW84. It was a movie I experienced multiple mixed feelings throughout. I had to compartmentalize the virtue signalling, Social Justice, Misandry, and so on with the bits I did enjoy. 80/20 is pretty much the dissatisfaction I felt and I intend on going in great detail. So without further ado, let’s get to it.
Synopsis |
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.
Cast |
The film stars Gal Gadot as the main protagonist Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman. She is out to stop Maxwell Lord from utilizing the abilities obtained by an ancient rock with the intention of taking over the world. Next we have Mr. Chris Pine who reprises his role as Steve Trevor. He is brought back to life when Diana accidentally makes a wish bringing her true love back. He helps Diana on her journey at stopping Maxwell and saving the world before we all nuke ourselves. Next up we have Kristen Wiig who portrays Cheetah, the secondary villain in the movie. She is an extremely socially awkward and gullible character who wants to be seen and valued by her peers. Lastly in the cast line-up we have Pedro Pascal who white-faces through the movie as Maxwell Lord. This racist created character wants to gain respect from the world and wealth within his empire just to have power.
Set-Pieces |
The first set-piece takes us back to the Amazon Island where Diana is going through her warrior trials as a child up against the big girls. She impressed thought the race, leading in the standings against the older girl when she accidentally gets knocked off her horse. She uses her whits in taking a shortcut that allows her to get back on her horse and regain the lead, but a crucial thing she did not do is hit the color flare that indicates she had passed a certain area. She comes first but is reprimanded for her cheating and is told her time will come in the future. The second set-piece sees a group of armed gunmen swarm a Jewelry Store in a local mall looking for the maguffin of the movie, a Wishing Rock. They are thwarted by Wonder Woman and the rock is sent to the organization where Diana works. The third set-piece sees Maxwell, who is known for is commercials, is threatened by an investor who placed some money into his oil business. Maxwell’s son over hears the verbal exchanges between himself and the investor and wonders what his going on. Maxwell reassures the boy and wants to be apart of his son’s life as a winner, not a loser.
The fourth set-piece introduces us to Kristen Wiigs character, let me just call her Cheetah. Cheetah is not really respected in her office and we see that no one even knew what she looked like. Diana and Cheetah are assigned to look into the rock, due to Diana having some knowledge of what it may be. Diana befriends Cheetah and it is revealed that all she wants is to be seen and wanted. The fifth set-piece sees Cheetah working on the research on the rock where she inadvertently makes a wish to be like Diana, giving her powers and a new sense of being. We also see that Maxwell, who is knowledgeable about the rock, has been searching for it himself and uses Cheetah as a means to steal it for himself. Coming on to her and making her think he has interest in what she has to say. With the rock now in his possession, Maxwell wishes himself to be the rock and grants himself the power to grant anyone’s wishes. The sixth set-piece we learn that Diana accidentally made a wish wanting to bring Steve back to life while the rock was in possession of Cheetah. Steve is brought back in a different person’s body and successfully reuniting with Diana with memories they shared previously.
The seventh set-piece sees Diana and Steve venturing out into the world and showing off what the 80s has to offer. They have a wonderful time, but the thought crosses their mind as to how this is possible. Together they go off questioning Cheetah on the rock and what she has found, but learns that Maxwell has the rock. Maxwell has been successfully tricking powerful people into wishing away their wealth and power to him while granting their personal wishes. Diana and Steve go off to stop him with the aide of Cheetah, who learns that if they stop him all her power will be gone. The eigth set-piece sees Maxwell at the white house finalizing the final piece to his goal of taking over the world, gaining power from the President of the USA. He successfully gains tremendous power from the President and ventures off to a top secret video control center to project his wishing power on people, but as a consequence the world begins to engage in a Nuclear War. Diana and Steve attempt to stop Maxwell but are stopped by Cheetah who has all of Diana’s power with Diana losing her own.
The tenth set-piece see Diana having to relinquish her wish and sending Steve away back to the afterlife, allowing her to gain back her full powers with new insight on how to fly. Maxwell manages to grant everyone’s wishes on the planet and causes major chaos. Cheetah becomes a full cheetah and does battle with Wonder Woman, who defeats her. Wonder Woman reaches to the people of the earth through the machine Maxwell is using and makes them all relinquish their wishes resulting into the potential Nuclear War to stop. This results in everything going back to normal and Maxwell being captured as a result of his doing. Diana, aka Wonder Woman, saves the day and embarks on more missions to protect the world.
Conclusion & Rating |
Well well well, where do I begin. This is one of the most virtue signalling, misandry featuring, white male hating movie I have ever seen. From the word jump I had a feeling that their was going to be something in here I may find offensive. From the trailers in the theater I felt the type of movies this was going to be. White males are now the species that is perfectly fine to hate. In this movie only the white males were evil, stupid, rude, or rapey. There is a scene where Kristen Wiig’s character gets her revenge on a white man who attempted to assault her early in the movie. The message of NO, coming from the no means no thing women say, was prominent and he was beaten to death I assume by her. The movie stopped and you can feel it when it does that they want to show a feminist message, but in my opinion it was disgusting and it only plays to the current climate where it’s perfectly okay to hate white men. I as a black man was deeply disgusted by this and by Pedro Pascal’s portrayal as a white face character. Now if a white person played black face it would be a massive uproar, but an hispanic man playing white and portraying it in such a negative way was shocking. This was green-lit by someone.
Being mainly focused on the movie, it is literally a continuation of Diana’s origin story and it adds to what we know about her. Both as a super-heroine and as a business woman. Gal Gadot plays this character well. I only know of her from the Fast & Furious series, but she made this character her own. I liked Chris Pine in this, with him being a fish out of water. He reprises the role very well and I am amazed that both himself and Gal look exactly the same as they did in the first one. Overlooking the issues I found and sticking to the 20% of things I actually like, it was okay. Nothing about this is different to any sequel movie and the plot is extremely formulaic. I give it a 3 out of 5. If you are a fan of the character and actors you will like this movie.
Thank you all for checking out this movie review. I am currently working on a Classics Review and further Ask The Balding One posts, so stay tuned for that. I am trying to be consistent and get back into the swing of things. Anyway people, be safe and enjoy the remainder of your holiday. Take it easy!
Originally published at http://xagonspeaks.wordpress.com on December 26, 2020.
