Wonder Woman 1984: Another DC Flop

Wonder Woman 1984 was released by the DC Extended Universe on Dec. 25, 2020 on HBO Max. The movie features a strong exposition in Themyscira with a young Diana learning one the most important lessons of her childhood. It then fast forwards to the year 1984 where she is seen continuing her side job as an antiques specialist while going out and saving the day as Wonder Woman.

This film, in all honesty, was a disappointment. While DC is well known for making awful movies, my expectations were slightly higher given that Wonder Woman, released in 2017, was one of the better DC movies released. However, this turned out to be yet another DC failure with an incredibly cliche storyline about an ancient stone that grants wishes. The storyline is muddled and its pacing is horrible, making the movie unnecessarily drawn out and boring apart from two scenes (if I am being generous).

Pedro Pascal’s performance of the antagonist Maxwell Lord was quite frankly awful. In all of his scenes he seems to be over-exaggerating the way his character is meant to be designed. It was almost as if they asked him to act like someone on TikTok doing an “acting challenge.” Kristin Wiig who played Cheetah was also another over-exaggeration that made the movie so much worse. As far as Gal Godot’s performance is concerned, I also feel like her acting was sub par to her normal performances, though she can only do so much with the mediocre script given to her.

I personally expected more from Patty Jenkins, the director, who was also in charge of the first Wonder Woman, but given her track record with her other movies I will not be expecting much for the next installment of this franchise.

If you have $15 and two and a half hours of time do not waste it on this movie unless you want to regret your life decisions.