Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman 1984 sees Diana as Washington DC’s sveltest singleton. Although it has been decades since her great love Steve...
Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman 1984 sees Diana as Washington DC’s sveltest singleton. Although it has been decades since her great love Steve died in a plane crash at the end of Wonder Woman (2017), Diana hasn’t moved on emotionally. She works at the Smithsonian Institute and dines by herself while her Wonder Woman avatar prevents small-time crimes. Having killed the god of war and saved the world from annihilation in the previous film, she is clearly ready for something bigger. She, and us, need to be very patient.
Before Diana (Gal Gadot) meets her nemesis Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), she runs into the timid gemmologist Barbara (Kristen Wiig). A mysterious boon-granting object called the Dreamstone that has landed up at the Smithsonian miraculously brings back Steve (Chris Pine) as well as transforms Barbara into a more confident (but also nastier) person. The Dreamstone reaches Maxwell, a Donald Trump-like huckster who uses it to gather all the money and power he can get.
The neat balance between necessary exposition and fleet and spectacular action that made the first movie so enthralling is sorely missing in the sequel. Unevenly paced and filled with inconsequential moments that add little to the larger plot, Wonder Woman 1984 kicks into gear only in its final...
