Wonder Woman 1984

Released digitally 16th December 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 follows Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) as she investigates the mysterious ‘dream stone’. Being the sequel to 2017’s greatly successful Wonder Woman, everyone’s expectations, including my own, were sufficiently high for the sequel and the announcement that it would take place in the 80s was promising. Whilst the setting was utilised in many of the films jokes, the atmosphere did little more for the film than displaying outfits of the time and your usual dosage of Cold War tensions. I feel like that is where the film falls rather flat compared to its predecessor.

Whereas every character in Wonder Woman had depth and character, lots of the characters in this film felt more like plot points. Even the main characters are a lot less grounded and clunky with their involvement in the film. Maxwell Lord doesn’t ever have much of an end goal and neither does Barbara Minerva and even the stuff that ‘works’ merely scrapes by with clunky dialogue and setups. The only thing that really saves the characters is the acting. Gal Gadot does well as Diana (better than the first film I think) with Chris Pine & Kristen Bell doing great jobs with Steve Trevor and Barbara Minerva, respectively. My top praise however goes to Pedro Pascal. Whereas the other actors clearly stumble with their shaky dialogue at times, Pascal owns it and it really makes his character stand out, albeit still with flaws.

The VFX are ok overall. With the exception of one character in the 3rd act, nothing looks horrendous but there also isn’t anything particularly great either. And it truly pains me to say this; Hans Zimmer’s score was pretty forgettable. He only used Wonder Woman’s theme once in the whole film too and you wished it were used more. The film’s desire to stick to the 80s whilst trying to introduce two villains of serviceable depth and also justifying the return of a character from the first film result in a dissatisfying, ultimately forgettable, sequel.