2017’s Wonder Woman film was a bit of a mess, though not without redeeming features. It had a hackneyed, ill-knitted script (or one whose coherence was botched in the editing table) that introduced a bunch of characters and then did very little with them as it tried to posit an anti-war message while also expecting us to re-live the anti-German sentiment of WWI-era propaganda. Diana’s characterization was especially awkward: she knew all sorts of modern languages without understanding anything about modern technology or culture, although she did consider it particularly cruel to attack ‘women and children’ despite having been brought up to think women were anything but powerless (I don’t mind inconsistency in the name of the occasional joke or narrative flow, but she was just all over the place…). That said, director Patty Jenkins did capture the *feel* of a superhero epic, with plenty of kickass sequences drenched in rousing sound and physics-defying visuals – in that sense, although with a more positive (pacifist, feminist, even anti-colonial in places) slant, Wonder Woman actually gelled with DC’s filmography, which has a whole tradition of disjointed movies (from the Batman series kickstarted by Tim Burton to Zack Snyder’s recent trilogy and Suicide Squad) which are best appreciated sensorially, on a moment-by-moment basis, with little regard for plot coherence or literal dialogue.
This goes triple for Wonder Woman 1984, which kicks off with a stunning – yet otherwise pointless – action set piece before turning into a campy pastiche of eighties’ fantasy comedies and ending up with a climax that doesn’t make a lick of sense. It helps if you take it for what it is – an unabashedly cheesy children’s movie, one where the hero keeps saving kids, where a very silly story hinges on a magical wishing stone, and where the villain is a greedy, sleazy, megalomaniac man-child ranting against ‘losers’… In other words, Jenkins’ latest opus is definitely on the Shazam! end of the DC Extended Universe (as well as a throwback to Christopher Reeve’s corny Superman movies). That all this easily doubles as an obvious parody of Trumpian populism (pitted against a woman with a Lasso of Truth!) may speak less about Geoff Johns’ typical overwriting than about the ridiculousness of the current outgoing president (even the opening’s generic message about cheating and accepting defeat has gained a topical resonance in the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election).
In any case, if it’s sheer aesthetic pleasure you’re looking for, here is a reminder that (Wonder Woman) comics can be awesome:
