Did WW84 kill the franchise?

Saturday December 26, 2020 | By Hieronymus Hawkes | TV and Movie Review

Spoiler Alert: I am going to talk about some stuff in the movie below. If you don’t want to see then stop here.

I watched Wonder Woman 1984 last night. I was expecting something on par with the first Wonder Woman movie, which was done well, and relatively serious in it’s tenor. And although the new movie tries to strike the same chord, it misses wildly. The picture above kind of sums up how I felt watching the movie.

Pedro Pascal’s character felt like a caricature, and he led the Monkey’s Paw plot arc that was unimaginative and completely out of sync with the previous incarnation. Yes, we could buy into Gods and demi-gods and the powers that they have, but they played it straight in the first movie. In this one they go straight into comic book plot lines. And I could even buy that if that were the only issue, but it was like they decided that science of any sort didn’t matter. They were playing hard to fan service in bringing back the Steve Trevor, and I like Chris Pine, but this indulgence may have been their downfall.

There is one particular sequence that jumped the shark for me. They steal a jet from the Smithsonian back lot. Okay. I can buy that. I can even buy the part where she fizzles up some magic ball of energy and she makes the jet invisible. We all know Wonder Woman has an invisible jet, so I gave them a pass on this, too. But give me a break. Trevor is from WWI. How the hell could a pilot that predates the jet age by 23 years before the prototype and more like 35 years before they were in common use, jump into a modern jet and fly it like there was nothing to it. I am a pilot, and I’d like to think that in a pinch I might be able to fly a jet I haven’t been in before, it would take some time to figure out how things worked, even though there might be some similarities. Would he even know what the throttles were? I am sure there was some mechanism for that, but how in the world did he start the engines just by chance, flipping switches in the right sequence and bringing the throttles out of cutoff to start. And then he flies directly into a huge fireworks display. Those are like M80 explosions. It would be like flying straight into a barrage of flak. No pilot in their right mind would do that, even though it made for a cool shot in the movie, showing the fireworks through the invisible skin of the jet. And there is absolutely no way that jet makes a direct flight to Cairo, Egypt from DC without getting refueled somewhere. Not only does it fly all the way there, but back again. I guess making it invisible gave it an unlimited fuel tank as well. It is straight up ridiculous. Don’t get me started on the magic lasso that can do anything, including seeing into the past, act like a prehensile tail, and wash your dishes (okay not that last one.)

The movie had some entertainment value if you can suspend your disbelief in science and technology. Gal Godot was wonderful, and the changing clothes scene was priceless. Kristen Wiig’s character was fun to watch, until they turn her into some weird panther creature.

Overall, I was extremely disappointed in the movie. It could very well kill the franchise. They completely squandered all the caché or credibility they gained from the first movie. I can’t recommend it to anyone.