Pros:
- It swings for the fences, it doesn’t play it safe. It’s a massive tonal shift from the first film, and it’ll alienate some viewers because of that. The first one was an epic with some funny moments sprinkled in, this one is a saturday morning cartoon. And personally, I welcome that kind of bold, creative decision making. The plot feels like it comes out of a silly 80’s film, and it works because of the vibe of the film.
- It has a very unique way of testing its characters. It isn’t just a simple: here we have bad guy x, he has powerset y, we have to beat him. The conflict in this film is much more internal and character based than your normal superhero flick. You get some great character arcs because of that.
- The action sequences are fantastic. The opening sequence alone makes this worth a watch. Furthermore, there are some awe inspiring beats that Patty Jenkins nails.
- The villains are good characters, much better than the last film to say the least. Pedro Pascal is great. Kristin Wigg is good too, and gets to play a lot of different facets. I don’t agree with the assessment that she should’ve been cut (her motivation differs enough from Pedro Pascal’s character to justify her as a villain in this story).
- The filmmaking it just top notch all around. The visuals (Matthew Jensen deserves a lot more work) and score are terrific. I didn’t quite get Zimmer’s choice to play [spoiler] the BvS Batman theme during the climax [/spoiler], however.
- There is a sense of fun to it. Again, the 80’s references are extremely exaggerated, but it works because of the cartoony tone of the film.
- Chris Pine makes a welcome return.

Cons:
- Though I see improvements with every film she’s in, I still don’t think Gal Gadot’s a strong enough actress to carry a franchise. Her line delivery is very wooden for the most part. Zack Snyder fucked up DC films in many ways, but his legacy contribution has been casting actors who have a good screen presence (read: they’re hot), but lack in the acting department (Ben Affleck excluded). If you’re bringing Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa and Henry Cavill to compete with the likes of Chadwick Boseman, Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, RDJ and Scarlett Johansson, I question your decision making. Also, you’re putting needless pressure on good filmmakers like Patty Jenkins and James Wan to cast a very strong supporting cast in order to do the heavy lifting for their own films. If this film had a supporting cast with actors of the caliber of Gal Gadot, you’d end up with a B-film. Thankfully, it doesn’t.
- The way they force the invisible jet and golden eagle armour into the plot feels lazy, and creates some continuity questions for the first film.
- It doesn’t have major pacing problems, but it’s a little too long.
- Some CGI issues.
- Minor point: I don’t like how unsubtle the message of the film is spelled out during the opening scene. It makes the film way more predictable than it should be.

7/10

The most boring, formulaic storytelling ever! This movie doesn’t indicate Hollywood is dead, instead it shows we are way beyond the grave and are just staring at the lifeless corpse of Hollywood cinema being pulled by strings. I don’t know who _Wonder Woman 1984_ was made for. Is the target audience kids? Because this felt like a children’s movie.

When Anna Banerjee said American superhero movies are blatant propaganda. Wow, SO true! I expect nothing less from a movie that’s an American perspective on the Cold War. Damn, communists! Damn, Russians! 90,000 years later Americans are still psychotically obsessed with the Russians. They are the only villains in US movies nowadays as well, so by that you can’t say in which year the whole movie takes place in, the only thing that pertains to 1984 are the clothes.

There was just so much wrong with this movie:

* Gal Gadot is a very beautiful woman but my goodness, she cannot act even a little. It's hard not to think she was chosen only because she's a pretty model type, because it certainly was not due to her acting skills. And does she even have enough lines to justify being the leading character?

* Pedro Pascal’s character is the same villain you’ve seen before in every film ever made: business man is overwhelm by his own greed. Oh, and his dad yelled at him for wetting the bed, so.

* I hated Kristen Wiig’s character. She is the nerd with glasses that nobody helps but we got a "makeover" scene where she becomes "pretty" because she … takes off her glasses! And then everybody totally falls for her. Gal Gadot was like, _"Where is your kindness and humanity, girl?"_ But Kristen Wiig was like, _"Lol stfu bitch, I’m doing hot girl shit now."_ It’s basically an endorsement of the _Joker_ thesis that it's always the socially insecure outcast who will eventually pose the greatest threat to humanity. But now people don’t have a problem with it because it’s women, so :tada: diversity. :tada: You people will gobble up any "diversity" scraps the Hollywood toss your way.

* Other tropes are so cliché are well. The _"hero losing her power"_ - women can only be strong and powerful or have love, never both, or the _"using kindness to save the world"_ – this really is a movie about how we can solve international war and terrorism through … forgiveness. :laughing:

* Everything in this movie is black or white, so naturally, we got the _"every man is an asshole but we aren’t going to have a real resolution about that"_ theme. Guys in car nearly kill jogger lady, bad guys want to throw kids to death in a mall – who acts like that?

* The dialogue is a hokey displeasure to listen to - _"Scientists don’t wear heels" "Some do", "I can save the day but ~you can save the world"_.

All in all, the plot is so riddled with cliches and idiotic ideas, the characters are either boring or stupidly written, the writing is complete garbage. The movie tries so hard to be relevant and relatable. I don’t have a high tolerance for overly cheesy movies, and I don’t think superhero movies are for me!

Talk about underwhelming. This is some really bad writing. Like everyone else, I was excited for this, but left disappointed. Chris Pine and Pedro Pascal were the best part of it. I really root for Gal Gadot, but her lack of acting skills really are noticeable with the bad writing. As for the movie, it just got more and more absurd as the movie went on. There were so many unnecessary scenes as well. These are some of the cons just off the top of my head?

Cons:
* The beginning - it kind of made the ending predictable on what was ultimately going to happen.
* The mall scene - it felt like a scene from a tv show. Also, how did the bad guys not die from that drop?
* The highway chase with the kids. How did the kids not hear a full convoy coming that were firing guns at each other?!? Also, how were they not seriously injured from that tumble?
* They didn't give Kristen Wiig's character enough time after the initial introduction. Her final transformation comes out of nowhere.
* Fireworks scene - How the hell did he not know that fireworks existed??
* Flying a Jet - How the hell does he know how to fly a technologically advanced jet?? I don't think the knowledge transfers over quite like that.
* Was Max Lord's kid just sitting in the office the entire duration of the plot? Was he being fed? Did he sleep on the floor and wear the clothes? Where was the mother?
* How come the transformation had to happen in another person's body, but nuclear missiles can appear out of nowhere?
*How come Diana never considered the moral ramifications of her wish? Like not even for a second. Weird.

[5.8/10] So many movies don’t get the basics right: characters who want something, themes to grapple with, setups and payoffs. Too often, those essential building blocks to storytelling are just set aside for reasons beyond me. That should make it refreshing when a movie like Wonder Woman 1984 comes along, with a story specifically founded on what its characters want, centered around a clear theme, that establishes details before they become relevant later in the film.

The catch is that while WW84 checks all those boxes, it doesn’t do any of these things terribly well, let alone advance to the next level and really make magic out of the combination of people and events that make up the movie. Particularly when it comes to superhero franchises (or sub-franchises), the first movie has to introduce the main character and their world, while the sequel can use that as a springboard to really play. This movie aims to do more than its 2017 predecessor, built around those core storytelling components, but then proceeds to make a mess of its wider ambit.

That starts with the hamfistedness of pretty much everything in the movie. There is absolutely no subtlety or nuance in WW84. The characters practically announce what they want (the conceit of the film all but demands it). An authority figure essentially declares the film’s moral in the opening segment. And if that all weren’t enough, Wonder Woman herself basically looks directly at the audience and tells us the point and overall message of the picture. If you missed what Wonder Woman 1984 was trying to do or say, you were either asleep or, more understandably, lost in the hash it makes of these ideas despite its directness.

The theme boils down to some combination of “Don’t take shortcuts,” “Be careful what you wish for,” and “Think about the wider costs of your individual wants.” Director-writer Patty Jenkins and co-writers Geoff Johns and David Callaham oversimplify those notions in the script, but there’s worse stars to steer by. The problem comes from two extremes: one is the bluntness of how plainly the film states its thesis on these topics and the other is how it loses itself in purple prose trying to dress them as something profound rather than trite. The mix leaves all three central ideas feeling under-realized over the course of the film.

Part of that is the premise. The central MacGuffin in the film is a magic rock that grants people wishes, but as is eventually revealed, also extracts a price for it. As silly as that sounds on paper, it’s a perfectly acceptable comic book-y idea to deploy here. There’s even potential to explore the costs of getting what we want by taking this shortcut, both to ourselves and to our communities.

But the rules are confusing and seemingly arbitrary, and divined by hero and villain alike with little logic. People have to be in contact with the stone to make their wish, but apparently can undo the effects by simply declaring “I renounce my wish!” a la Michael Scott. The legend of the stone says that it takes what you value the most in exchange for granting the wish, but when bad guy Maxwell Lord “becomes” the stone, he can apparently just decide what to take from people when they make their wishes. And the contact rule also goes out the window when Lord takes advantage of vague “particle” technology that makes seeing him on the TV screen as good as holding his hand for some reason.

Any single one of these things would be a stretch but perfectly tolerable within the outsized confines of a superhero movie. But stacking them on top of one another, in addition to plenty of other smaller contrivances and conveniences and headscratchers, leaves the film feeling like it doesn’t play by its own rules, and instead just makes up whatever it needs to in order to hurry things along to the next scene.

Some of that’s understandable, because the plot quickly becomes the least interesting part of the movie, WW84 finds an excuse to bring Chris Pine back as Steve Trevor and, as with the 2017 film, every scene of Wonder Woman and Trevor together is better than every scene without the two of them. Pine and Gadot continue to have great chemistry, and the combination of reversing the “fish out of water” dynamic from the last one, and the inherent joy and tragedy of reunion and loss, makes them the strongest element of the film.

Alas, the same can’t be said for the villains. Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah is a “baby’s first” version of Michelle Pfeifer’s Catwoman from Batman Returns. The homage seems to be a deliberate one, replete with power lines, but that just makes Barbara Minerva’s cartoony affect and transformation all the more lacking by comparison. There’s the germ of something good with Minerva feeling invisible and unsure, seeking popularity and poise, but it’s lost in a bunch of over-the-top moments that dampen any humanity at the center of the idea.

The same goes for Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord, who seems part a commentary on Donald Trump and part a rejection of the “Greed Is Good” ethos that WW84 hopes to combat when invoking this era of American History. Pascal goes for broke in the performance, but the character is so thin, with a last minute depositing of backstory and presto-changeo change of heart that leaves him like so many other characters here -- more one-dimensional than he should be.

Some of the film’s more substantive failings would be easier to ignore if it were just more fun to watch and nicer to look at. Despite a solid opening sequence where a young Diana runs through a Themyscira obstacle course, most of the action here is unavailing at best. The CGI, frankly, looks pretty terrible, with tons of obvious green-screening and movements that lack weight or recognizable fluidity.

Some of that can be chalked up to superhumans doing superhuman things, but much of it just comes down to a flat weak aesthetic mixed with unconvincing special effects. The direction is largely indifferent outside of that opening triathlon riff, and the look of Wonder Woman’s lassoing and ass-kicking and flight feel neither real enough to pass muster or impressionsitic enough to feel artistic.

That’s right, Wonder Woman learns to fly here, another nod to her powers in the comics. Along with the invisible jet and her magic super armor, the movie comes up with a plausible enough bit of setup to where these developments don’t feel completely out of the blue, and yet most of them still feel underdeveloped -- pieces that wouldn’t make sense if they weren’t references to something else in the character’s publication history, with only the barest of scaffolding to keep them from being totally random. There’s at least a minor emotional resonance to Diana taking flight after accepting the renewed loss of her true love/pilot boyfriend, but it’s still undercooked.

That’s true for so much in Wonder Woman 1984. The basic foundation is there. The characters have desires and lose something in the pursuit of them. The film wears its themes on its sleeves. And however rushed the setup may be, most of the developments in the film have some minor preparation for them in the early going.

But once you move beyond those simple building blocks, Jenkins and company make a hash of pretty much everything else. The film soon becomes an overlong, over-the-top, ugly muddle of a movie. It proves that you can fulfill the basic requirements and still fail as a movie by not doing them very well, let alone matching the feats of your protagonist, and soaring above them.

1984, a sequel to the fantastic "Wonder Woman", which showed a cool breeze in the middle of a saturated superhero cinematic market, is a fantastic continuation of the story of our favourite super heroine. Lighter in action, but thematically profound, this may not be a film that pleases everyone.

Let's start with the positives: Gal Gadot, as a wonder woman, continues to prove to be the perfect choice to play the part. The actress maintains a strong bond with the audience , really showing all the strong emotions that the character feels during the course of the story. Without her, the film would lose something really essential: her soul.

The story, thematically linked to greed, our deepest desires and selfishness, provides a journey of development for the characters that makes us reassess certain attitudes taken throughout our lives. The story seeks to develop each of the characters, and this is what gives it so much strength.

Chris Pine, as Steve Trevor, is also one of the film's high points, and his chemistry with Gadot remains explosive, providing the film with an engaging romance that will make anyone feel warm inside.

The film is completely different from the first, its style is radically changed, becoming lighter, like a cartoon we watched on Saturday morning as children. For some, dramatic stylistic change may be a negative factor, but in a year of so much suffering, lightness and hope are exactly what we need to abstract ourselves from real life for two hours.

When it comes to action, the film is not as explosive as first, it is contained and the action sequences, though incredible, are scarce. In a two and a half hour film, this may entice some to feel bored. But in my opinion, the film never slows down because of the incredible characters and their interactions.

As far as the most negative points of the film are concerned, I would say that the rope of suspension of credibility is really stretched during the duration of the film and we are asked to accept really ridiculous things that come out of nowhere. The film is also very cheesy, with sequences that can be considered lame and dull.

All in all, however, this film is a glimmer of hope and joy in a dark and desperate year. I strongly advise you to watch it, it's two hours of fun, with no problems and smiles in the mix. Although not perfect, and inferior to the first, this sequel is worthy of the adjective "Wonder".