This was one of the worst movies ive ever had the displeasure of watching, full stop. I know critics are afraid to totally lash this movie because of reasons, but it really does deserve 15% on RT.
RT is generally not a good metric of quality for superhero movies, reviewers just phone it in. I mean read this fresh ny post review. Three paragraphs summarizing the plot using thesaurus.com and 1 paragraph saying the 2.5hr superhero movie is too long. Probably 15 minutes to write it. It's dogshit.
It's subjective but it's about the themes and motivations of the characters. Do they care about other people, do they have believable motivations, do they show warmth and concern for the well being of the people around them, do they go to great lengths to help others. Diana's non-lethality, her constantly saving kids, her warm relationships, and even the fact that she doesn't beat/kill the villain, she basically saves him and brings him back from the brink, saves him not through strength but reminding him of love. That's 'heart' when compared to something like the doomsday fight in BVS or whatever.
Did the lady who wished for all the Irish people to be banished renounce her wish? The Irish guy wished her dead. Would dead people's wishes automatically not need to be renounced, or would she have to renounced her wish after he renounced his and brought her back to life? How would she know to renounce hers? She was dead for WW's whole speech.
Also, I refuse to believe Bruce Wayne would have renounced whatever wish he made.
These movies need to stop with the globetrotting adventure to find item or have action scene and return.
I often like to think if you cut certain action scenes would the plot change in movies. The car desert chase is one of those.
Man, people are really hating this film. That's so disappointing. Geof Johns and Patty need to assess what made the first one so great, and focus on that.
Did the lady who wished for all the Irish people to be banished renounce her wish? The Irish guy wished her dead. Would dead people's wishes automatically not need to be renounced, or would she have to renounced her wish after he renounced his and brought her back to life? How would she know to renounce hers? She was dead for WW's whole speech.
Also, I refuse to believe Bruce Wayne would have renounced whatever wish he made.
This is another reason it bugged me. It felt like the whole point was to justify all the time spent on the mall fight scene. It would have been easy enough for the FBI to intercept the stone off-camera, or to have Barbara just already have the stone and Max learns about it during his visit or whatever.
Was Max heading in to the mall later to pick up his big rock?
These movies need to stop with the globetrotting adventure to find item or have action scene and return.
I often like to think if you cut certain action scenes would the plot change in movies. The car desert chase is one of those.
Patty really, really gets the character and how to make Gadot work in the role and for that she should be rewarded with as many more WW films as she wants to make. The next one should go all out with spectacle and action (probably Circe, amazons, gods and monsters) and a tighter story, just give her some script writers to help her reign it in next time. Bring back Allan Heinberg who wrote the first film and leave Geoff Johns out. Leave out The Expendables guy too.
Did the lady who wished for all the Irish people to be banished renounce her wish? The Irish guy wished her dead. Would dead people's wishes automatically not need to be renounced, or would she have to renounced her wish after he renounced his and brought her back to life? How would she know to renounce hers? She was dead for WW's whole speech.
Also, I refuse to believe Bruce Wayne would have renounced whatever wish he made.
I was under the impression Mando renouncing his wish rendered all the rest renounced as well. The scene of everyone else renouncing was just fluff padding to say "see, people are good."
Finished it. Movie was a total mess. Way too long for its own good given what the conflict was about. Just these long stretches with little action, and then when we do get an action scene, they're kind of awful? And I'm honestly impressed this movie managed to have a 3rd act worse than the first film. It rivals X-Men: Age of Apocalypse in how it much it asks you to turn your brain off regarding the ridiculous of everything that's happening. The first two acts were competent despite being kind of dull. But that third act was just very rough.
The first movie I initially thought was pretty meh, but I grew to like it after a rewatch. It was charming. WW84 on the other hand, I don't see my opinion changing. Not that I'd rewatch this anyhow, it really is too damn long.
Gadot continues to be whatever in the role in terms of acting. Pedro Pascal was actually pretty good at first in terms of hamming it up, and it was entertaining seeing how he escalated his villainy, but towards the end he just sort of overdoes it. Same issue with Wiig, I liked her at first, but the more villainous she gets the harder it is to take her seriously. Don't even wanna talk about her Cheetah transformation...
Chris Pine honestly shouldn't have been in this, but in hindsight I realize that aside from Gal not being strong enough to carry the movie on her own, she basically has no supporting cast in this movie that's on her side. It's literally just Steve. So I guess its better than just Diana by herself. As for the romance, manook, I was able to overlook how sad it was that Diana fell for literally the first man she met in the first movie. Because admittedly they had a lot of chemistry. But for that same person to be the only man you'll ever love ever? It's been several decades since he died, and she's still hung up on the first dude she's ever met. C'mon...
Overall, it's a movie where I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in theaters.
One thing I super hated in this movie was how Diana has been spending 70 years pining (heh) over someone she knew for all of.... one or two weeks in the first movie? Like, seriously? I love Chris Pine too but that just really makes Diana come off as so stagnant and one dimensional. She just feels like so much less of a character.
I think this is an immediate trade off as he burns himself with the coffee upon drinking it. Maybe his taste buds are destroyed now and he can't enjoy food anymore. Whoops.
These movies need to stop with the globetrotting adventure to find item or have action scene and return.
I often like to think if you cut certain action scenes would the plot change in movies. The car desert chase is one of those.
I think we all know by now that there are too many shitty people in the world that wouldn't let go of theirs even if civilization was collapsing around them.
I think I would have liked it more if the rest of the movie had the same tone.
This is another reason it bugged me. It felt like the whole point was to justify all the time spent on the mall fight scene. It would have been easy enough for the FBI to intercept the stone off-camera, or to have Barbara just already have the stone and Max learns about it during his visit or whatever.
Was Max heading in to the mall later to pick up his big rock?
I can almost see where they were going with this but man, it felt half-baked. I actually thought most of the actors did their jobs, but the rest...
Never even mind the wackadoo main plot, so many other things just seems really poorly written. Some examples:
They just casually jack a jet fighter
- a jet fighter that some pilot from the 30's just knows how to fly off the bat
- which he then flies 6,000 miles to Cairo (operational range for an F15 from what I understand is appro. 3k miles, max?)
And after that she awkwardly just teaches herself to fly
- but then on her way to the secret military installation she just magically teleports back to her office for an armor fitting
- after which she fights cheetah, and just leaves her on a cliff chillin'?
And also Lynda Carter then shows up as Asteria...but just to show off, apparently?
I think it's a fine movie if you just shut your brain off, but dang...
Man, people are really hating this film. That's so disappointing. Geof Johns and Patty need to assess what made the first one so great, and focus on that.
I thought it was convoluted, too long and Cheetah was a bad choice to adapt.
I didn't hate every part of it. I thought it cleaned up some mythology & I still like Pine and Gadot together. At the same time, while I get the referential, Donner-Superman meets Wonder Woman TV series vibe they were going with at some points, I don't think it landed because even though I'm familiar with it, I'm not nostalgic for it. And I doubt many others are, too.
Gadot's WW has always stood tall during the bad-ass moments. You want her to drop in and kick people through walls while an electric harp is going off - you don't necessarily care for majestic swinging, whipping and floating as much. Even though I get what they were trying, it wasn't what I wanted from the sequel.
Was the president just some dude that someone else whished into becoming president, or the actual president? I understand DC has alternate history in that sense so I wasn't expecting Reagan, but I got the impression that guy almost didn't know why he was there.
Was the president just some dude that someone else whished into becoming president, or the actual president? I understand DC has alternate history in that sense so I wasn't expecting Reagan, but I got the impression that guy almost didn't know why he was there.
I can buy a rat doing rat things, even if their timing is really coincidentally beneficial.
"Mall jewelery store that smuggles specific artifacts for clients" is just so bizarre, though. I don't even understand the logistics of how they'd get the artifacts there, or how customers would place orders or pick them up. It really seems like a business you'd want your own warehouse for or something, instead of a small, visible location with external security and limited hours of operation.
I can buy a rat doing rat things, even if their timing is really coincidentally beneficial.
"Mall jewelery store that smuggles specific artifacts for clients" is just so bizarre, though. I don't even understand the logistics of how they'd get the artifacts there, or how customers would place orders or pick them up. It really seems like a business you'd want your own warehouse for or something, instead of a small, visible location with external security and limited hours of operation
I mean not really? Further you go in history, the more custom orders you see for jewelry, gem stones, and crystals. The idea of being tied to specific types of jewelry mostly solidified as more and more Jewelry stores got bought up by large orgs like De beers and the art of gem smithing died.
The resolution was whack (where do these characters end up, how does the world recover from the events, what was the lasting impact of the movie)
[*]The villain was too manic and his motivations were not clear after the first few uses of his power
[*]The consequences of using the thingy were not clear, especially with how the villain was acting near the end
[*]The sub-villain's heel turn was nonsensical (pinned on a brief mention of footwear). She also didn't seem to be particularly mistreated to have such a big chip on her shoulder
[*]I legitimately wondered for longer than whoever wrote the movie whether the returning character effectively killed an innocent man by subsuming his consciousness... Like, it was distracting.
[*]Also, there's a scene where some kids are moved off of a road that was distractingly bad.
That's not to say there were no good moments, but it was dragged down by a lot of questionable and poor choices/execution.
Worse than the first, and only worth watching because I'm fucking bored as hell.
5/10
I was under the impression Mando renouncing his wish rendered all the rest renounced as well. The scene of everyone else renouncing was just fluff padding to say "see, people are good."
I think it's really wild that this movie just frames any and all wishes as "bad" under the guise of "no cheating allowed". I mean, realistically, no one wished for a better life? Is a hypothetical person who lost his limbs wishing to walk again inherently bad for doing so? How many people from minority groups would've wished for an end to bigotry and hate? The movie cleverly doesn't address this because I guess Jenkins and Johns knew how much something as simple and obvious as this would already ruin the message of the film, so instead the wishes we see are all selfish in nature.
It's also kind of wild IMO that Diana just forces her own perspective on everything as the morally right thing to do. I mean, sure Diana, I'm sure you can deal with any issue that's thrown your way by hard word, but you are a freaking nigh-immortal demigod. Other people aren't so lucky. But please tell me more how you have had to sacrifice a lot and also endured hardships.
In a way her hypocrisy is even worse because of the opening scene, which shows that even as a child she was already basically the best since she could've easily won without taking the shortcut if she hadn't been hit by a branch. So her saying "it wasn't earned" to a whole lot of people who possibly used their one wish to achieve things they would never ever be able to achieve on their own feels really disingenuous.
Why did they frame Barbara beating up the guy that assaulted her previously, and then tried to assault her again, as some villainous act? What the hell? At least wait till she "goes too far" with it to start playing the evil music. It's very weird because she's a very likeable and sympathetic character up till that point, so having that be the start of her descent to baddie was so dang bizarre.
I mean not really? Further you go in history, the more custom orders you see for jewelry, gem stones, and crystals. The idea of being tied to specific types of jewelry mostly solidified as more and more Jewelry stores got bought up by large orgs like De beers.
They're not just custom orders, though. They're running the jewelery store as a front and presumably illegally obtaining and smuggling in the items, to the point where, upon discovery, the FBI becomes involved.
We're getting into the weeds, though. It just seems to me like they forced the connection to justify the mall fight. It doesn't seem organic. With the ludicrous runtime of the movie it could easily have been cut, although I feel somebody felt they needed the mall fight for the trailer.
I actually really enjoyed the character writing this time around. Fleshing out both Barbara and Lord was welcome, though Diana's arc was a bit less satisfying as she doesn't really change much over the course of the film, but it was nice to see her stick to her principles through the whole movie, even when it was difficult.
The plot itself was a total convoluted mess, but I didn't care too much about it. I was watching more for the character developments after the first thirty minutes and turned my brain off to the utter comic book nonsense happening around them.
You can tell this was written in Donald Trump's America as pretty much every theme they were going for circled around rebuking Trumpian philosophy, and I can sympathize with that considering the hellscape the country has been for four years now. The movie suffers from being so on the nose, and I imagine it won't age spectacularly (if I'm allowed to be optimistic about the future) as a lot of it will feel dated.
That being said, I did like it for what it was trying to do and say, and I did enjoy the character development being a bit more thought out than you usually see in superhero movies. It just wasn't perfect, and needed more time in the cutting room and maybe a handful of better screenwriters sharpening everything up.
I do expect that this will be a film that will have a big following in a decade or so. It's so heartfelt and wholesome, and after 2020, I would not be surprised if a whole lot of people attach a lot of emotion to this one and I expect there will be some really interesting defenses and interpretations in the future.
It's a very good example of a 60% RT movie, even though it is higher than that, but yeah.
Mediocre with some good thing here and there.
I liked the first 2 thirds of the first movie. I probably like about a third of this movie, but taking stuff from the whole movie, not one specific complete whole third.
And the stuff about the
President being out of it and thinking he was somewhere else was because he really was, Max made him appear there by making someone wish he had an audience with him, not because it touched on the Alzheimer stuff some are saying.
And then the central plot is driven by.. a magic stone that grants wishes? Really? This should be the plot of a duck tales episode, not a live action film.
The wire fight with Cheetah sounds promising on paper...but Wonder Woman was just swinging on her lasso for a long time waiting for Cheetah to get to her lol
Patty really, really gets the character and how to make Gadot work in the role and for that she should be rewarded with as many more WW films as she wants to make. The next one should go all out with spectacle and action (probably Circe, amazons, gods and monsters) and a tighter story, just give her some script writers to help her reign it in next time. Bring back Allan Heinberg who wrote the first film and leave Geoff Johns out. Leave out The Expendables guy too.
I wonder who wrote in the fact that Diana literally rapes a guy and never ever feels bad about it, because that doesn't really seem "in-character" for Wonder Woman.
I can buy a rat doing rat things, even if their timing is really coincidentally beneficial.
"Mall jewelery store that smuggles specific artifacts for clients" is just so bizarre, though. I don't even understand the logistics of how they'd get the artifacts there, or how customers would place orders or pick them up. It really seems like a business you'd want your own warehouse for or something, instead of a small, visible location with external security and limited hours of operation.
Boy this movie is just packed with wacky side details. Diana lives in the watergate! The Sunshine cut of adagio in g minor! Cats 2020! Reusing characters with lines! This is what it must be like to watch a movie as one of those YouTube video essayists who make a 50 minute video critique.
Also the bad guy's motivation and plan is god damn ridiculous.
I was really excited to see this since the first one was really good imo, but damn. It was really really bad. Only good thing was Pedro who's amazing in pretty much anything he does.
I even enjoyed Gal's performance in the first, even though she's not an amazing actress, but in this she was really unconvincing.
I thought this was just boring bad until the talking to the audience part and then it became please shut this off cringe bad.
This movie had a serious script issue. The villains are terrible and don't even make any sense and so there's no clear goal for the point of the film for the main character.
Definitely one of the worst superhero flicks in a while. DC started to get back to quality with WW, Aquaman, Shazam, so this is pretty disappointing.
Yeah, definitely an "all diverse representation isn't good representation" poster child... I don't have proof that Gadot's politics influenced the screenplay, but they sure seem to have...
Also agree with the comments about the queasiness of WW's rape of some man's body being glossed over, whereas Wiig's act of retribution is presented menacingly too.
