![]() ![]() ![]() In a lovely touch, he is stunned by the achievements of NASA. This time around he is the fish out of water and not Diana, marvelling at the wonders of a whole new age: punks, escalators, contemporary art and break-dancing. There are no Marvel-style gags here, but Pine draws plenty of chuckles as a more puppydog-ish version of his pilot. Her dynamic with Steve Trevor (mysteriously returning for reasons we won’t divulge, despite sacrificing his life in Wonder Woman) remains beautifully played. Superman might fly, but Wonder Woman soars. There’s an acrobatic fluidity to her action choreography that’s joyous to watch, a sense of weightlessness as she propels herself through the air. Her Diana exudes grace and goodness, her power displayed with an unabashed femininity that still feels revelatory amid a crowded landscape of ripped male heroes. ![]() Gadot's Diana exudes grace and goodness, her power displayed with an unabashed femininity that still feels revelatory.Īs with the last film, the heart and soul of Wonder Woman 1984 is Gadot. Wiig proves novel casting - her inherent likeability garners sympathy in the early scenes, but she holds her own through Barbara’s transformation, conjuring real menace when she turns the tables on a predatory creep. But as her admiration of Diana turns into something more dangerous, she goes from glamorous head-turner to full-blown Joan Jett - all smudged eyeliner, animal print and thigh-high boots. After an early encounter with the effortlessly elegant Diana, she longs to be “cool, sexy, special” like her, sparking a Peter Parker-style glow-up. Pascal puts in an entertainingly broad performance, Lord’s tacky persona becoming more unhinged as his Wolf Of Washington schtick gives way to a deeper corruption tied to the powers of a mysterious crystal.Ĭaught in Lord’s tractor beam is Kristin Wiig’s Barbara Minerva - a square gemologist who, per Lord’s catchphrase, very much wishes for more. “I’m not a con man… I’m a television personality,” says Lord in one pointed barb. Despite the retro setting, the Trumpian satire means 1984 speaks directly to 2020. He’s a very different kind of bad guy to Wonder Woman’s Ares, and yet niftily deployed as the antithesis of Diana - a liar-in-chief, appealing to people’s basest instincts in order to further his own personal gain, corrupting everyone he encounters.Ĭombined with the film’s Washington DC setting, it’s not hard to see what – or, who exactly – Jenkins is getting at. Instead, the ’80s is invoked as a peak age of capitalist excess embodied by Pascal’s Maxwell Lord, all smarmy mannerisms and cheesy gestures. Where Wonder Woman pitched a previously sheltered Diana into wartime, the sequel fast-forwards several decades to the mid-’80s - and despite an initial influx of legwarmers, spandex and red-chrome Porsches, Jenkins resists leaning too heavily into the era’s pop- culture signifiers. Jenkins’ belief in and understanding of Diana’s true power is written right into the DNA of Wonder Woman 1984, shining through in its quietly revolutionary imagery and the thematic underpinnings that pit our hero against Pedro Pascal’s shady villain. It’s clear that Jenkins feels even more empowered this time around to hold firm to Wonder Woman’s intrinsic ethos: that she is a bastion of truth and honesty, whose physical strength is complemented by the warmth, love and generosity that she radiates. Patty Jenkins’ 2017 film pierced the grimdark pomposity of Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman in an outing that dared to embrace the inherent goodness of its central hero, a sincerity that shone through both in its super-powered set-pieces, and in the budding romance between Gal Gadot’s Amazonian warrior-goddess Diana and Chris Pine’s human (but superhumanly handsome) World War I pilot Steve Trevor. It’s fitting that Diana Prince is the one to swoop in and save the day - after all, she was the original bright new hope of the DC Extended Universe, once so mired in morally murky seriousness (and visually murky set-pieces). But as the year closes, one comic-book blockbuster has defied the odds to make it to the big screen and rescue 2020 from total misery: Wonder Woman 1984. ( Birds Of Prey arguably qualifies, though Harley Quinn was more concerned with saving an egg sandwich than saving the world.) After years of box-office dominance, the one thing DC and Marvel’s greatest heroes weren’t prepared for was a pandemic. For the first time in about two decades, 2020 has been a year without a single major planet-rescuing superhero on the big screen. ![]()
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