I managed to eventually get around to watching Wonder Woman 1984 yesterday, despite it being out for over a couple of weeks at this point.
Let me begin by saying, I in no way believe the movie was as good as the first one was, but I don’t believe it’s as bad as some people are making it out to be.
Let’s get the major elephant in the room out the way with Pedro Pascal being miscast as Maxwell Lord. I don’t believe he was. I think Pascal did a fantastic job with the character, and there was never a moment during the movie I thought otherwise.
He stole the role and made the character extremely intense and also desperate at the same time. He wasn’t a typical villain we’re used to seeing in these types of movies. It made sense he went off the rails with his newfound power and put it to (in a bad guy sense) good use.
A complaint I saw and one I saw from my own colleague within Comic Universe was that the story was slow, but rushed. It never really made much sense, but after watching the movie it is a point I do agree with.
It kind of took quite some time to actually get into the story, and when it did it just floated through it extremely quickly. Even the Cheetah ark had the same, we got full-fledged Cheetah for the best part of a couple of minutes and then it was over.
So whilst I have complaints with the movie myself, I still enjoyed it. I liked the premise of the story with Dreamstone. Being able to make one wish, with consequences following on from it was a standpoint I was actually interested in.
Especially Maxwell Lord straight up becoming the Dreamstone was an interesting take and I surely wasn’t expecting that to happen as I never knew an awful lot about the movie going into it.
The timeline which the movie was set on was also done extremely well. We all know the ’80s was a funky and fantastic time in history, and Wonder Woman did a great job in projecting that realism back. The movie was set in, wait for it, 1984! The mall scene at the beginning showed it perfectly.
Steve returning was a positive push for the story, and for Diana to finally get closure on their relationship. They made a valid point of her still struggling, even after around 56 years. You could see this when the camera pans through her apartment that she still never fully moved on.
By bringing him back for a brief moment, it allowed Diana to truly move on and this is something I really did like the idea of. Even if people are making obscure comments about the consensual…never mind. I shouldn’t even have to explain this point because those comments are stupid.
All in all, I agree the movie wasn’t perfect. It had issues throughout but I really did enjoy the movie. I never found myself switching off at any part and found everything incredibly interesting.
As always, Gal Gadot is a fantastic Wonder Woman and deserves all the praise in the world for truly bringing the character to life.
I see in our review we rated it a 9.4, you can see the review here. If I was personally rating it, I would have gave it around an 8.4/10 because of the issues noted above with the rushed but slow story and Cheetah.
