1984 was an eventful year. Let’s see… Indira Gandhi was murdered by her trusted bodyguards, UK and China came to an agreement that Hong Kong will revert to China in 1997. In pop-culture, 44 members of Band Aid came together to record the phenomenal single Do They Know It’s Christmas? The most popular movies were Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was also the year of breakdancing, shoulder-pads, fanny packs, loud get-ups in vivid colours, parachute pants and big hair-dos. Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman would fit right in like a glove, but for a movie that situates itself in that year, it doesn’t use the stuff that are synonymous with the year resoundingly; it doesn’t even have head-bangers like New Order’s Blue Monday, which was featured in the trailer. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Wonder Woman 1984 begins with a soaring prologue of a Themyscira-set Amazonian Olympics, reminiscent of the Quidditch matches in the Harry Potter movies. This opening scene alone is testament that some movies should be seen on the big screen, and not streamed on your telly at home. Young Diana (Lilly Aspell) learns an important life lesson that becomes her mantra for life.
Fast forward to 1984 and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) is working at the Smithsonian, while still pining for Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). Her co-worker and new friend, Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) discovers an unusual relic called Dreamstone which grants one’s deepest wishes. Enters a desperate con-man, Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), who wants the Dreamstone for his own selfish needs, basically to become the world’s most powerful man, but not before Diana unsuspectingly makes a wish of her own.
WW84 opens with two excellent action sequences. From the Themyscira set-piece, it races to a mall fight with robbers who read too much into Max Lord’s “all you need is to want it” chant. This action sequence fuses comedy, action, 80s scene-setting and showcases Wonder Woman as a female role model. That last bit is seen from the eyes of a little girl who watches the superhero make short work of the hoodlums. Her pride and sense of wonder is palpable. Then the movie settles down on building its story and here is where it starts to be on flimsy ground.
A story based on a variation of The Monkey’s Paw is always going to be kooky. Aren’t all of us brought up with the notion that if you ever get your hands on a magic lamp granting you three wishes, you wish that the wishes never end? The final denouement of this arc doesn’t lend itself to a grandiosity which is very much a staple in a superhero genre film.
No prizes for guessing how Steve Trevor lands up in 1984. It’s a coup really because the chemistry between Pine and Gadot was what made the first one a special movie. In my books, Gadot resembles a gorgeous statue and doesn’t have the range as an actress, but pair her with an ensemble of good actors she starts to shine. The roles are reversed in this sequel with Steve being the fish out of the water and Diana giving him a tour of America in 1984.
WW84 is about Wonder Woman, and like all movies about a continuing hero or heroine, villains are what give it its flavour. We get two here – Cheetah and Max Lord. On a wide spectrum of superhero movies which have at least two villains, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 (2007) on the lowest end and Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008) on the other, WW84 is probably right smack in the middle.
Of the two, Wiig as Minerva is more interesting. She is timid, lacks confidence and is your basic “invisible” woman in today’s society. Her growth as a character is engaging, but the moment she becomes Cheetah she becomes short shrift. Max Lord is more straightforward – he is your basic charlatan, the man with a huge personality but with zero substance. Pedro Pascal does his best with his character and maxes out his lines to the best of his ability, channeling Gordon Gekko of Wall Street (1987), but using him to close out the climax feels very meh. Mind you, a battle of wits using mere words can be epic and my mind is now swimming in the scene of Sandman battling Satan in Hell in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, but here Patty Jenkins gives us the most cringe-worthy speech for Wonder Woman ever. If I have to listen to one more time that the world is beautiful, I would slice my arm with a knife because only then can I feel something.
If villains are what gives a superhero movie its flavour, then the action set-pieces are what brings in the moola. For a movie that runs at 151 minutes, WW84 has only four (excluding the opening prologue sequence). I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day and he told me his nephew said WW84 is lousy because it only has two action scenes. Okay, I get it… one of them is probably so unmemorable that it didn’t register in his consciousness and he definitely dismissed the last one as an action spectacle. Fair warning, everyone.
WW84 is a morality story warning against greed and the excesses of capitalism. Whether it succeeds in making you think twice about buying the Louis Vuitton bag is another thing. It is churned out from a superhero algorithm machine and ticks all the right boxes, but does so with such lacklustre ebullience that you will notice all the puppet strings pulling everything, including you, throughout. But I think I am too harsh. I should be grateful there is actually a tentpole superhero opening in the cinemas. In a horrid year where superheroes are all hiding out waiting for the opportune time to rein in the dollars, Wonder Woman is a shiny beacon of hope.
Written by Daniel Chiam
BookMyShow Singapore 
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