Johnny Silva

WONDER WOMAN '84, the sequel to Director Patty Jenkins' uplifting superhero film about one of the world's most popular cultural icons was sadly...a huge disappointment. WW84's first 15mins begins very promising in the childhood past of Princess Diana on her homeland Paradise Island. We once again get to see the amazing Robin Wright...but for wayyy too little of time. Once the film shifts to its present-day of 1984, the direction begins to look mediocre and immature in terms of the action. The 80's mall setting could have been an awesome sequence, but the fight scene turns into a mess of just Gadot smiling at kids as she captures the criminals, who in turn end up coming off like slapstick rejects from a straight-to-video movie. Kristen Wiig's performance was the stand-out of the film though, as she progresses from clumsy and insecure Barbara Minerva into an aggressive and sexy adversary. I think this rival dynamic between the two women could've been an interesting direction for the film. Instead we get Pedro Pascal as the film's dull, main villain, a ridiculous wish-granting stone, and also a resurrected Steve Trevor played again by Chris Pine. Trevor's presence actually took the Wonder Woman costume out of most of the film, and left us with Diana And Steve rekindling their lost love and setting up an 80s fashion montage. Add WW also given two new levelled-up powers that she didn't have last time, and yeah, this movie was a mess. I really wanted to like it a lot. But for some reason , through its script and sequences, it seemed to be trying hard to be both very family-friendly and a morality tale. I think Warner Brothers should have trusted what they had with Wiig's portrayal, and had the film center around her and Gadot. Then we could've enjoyed seeing both actresses give us more involved sides of their characters. < ** out of **** stars >