Movie reviews in six paragraphs. (Six paragraphs, everybody knows the rules.)
I signed up for HBO MAX primarily to watch Wonder Woman 1984. Below is my review. Warning contains minimal spoilers.
I am going to start by saying, overall, I do like the movie. Gal Gadot is as much Wonder Woman today, as Lynda Carter was in the 70s. The role is hers, she embodies the character in stature and intellect and appearance and emotion.
The film is beautifully shot. The colors bring those of us who lived in the 80s back to a memorable time. Unfortunately, the beautiful cinematography is offset by some below average CGI. This seems to be an issue in many DCEU movies. Perhaps it is time to be less reliant on the computers and a bit more on talented stunt people like Jessie Graff. Some of the CGI sequences seem like a cross between the Claymation of Davey and Goliath and my paint-by-numbers kit from the 70s. For a feature with a budget of tens of millions of dollars, there is no excuse.
The acting is fantastic. The writing not so much. And the story has been told so many times; the villians are outcasts just seeking acceptance and the hero must choose between being the hero and true love, that it can be viewed as lazy. So much so, that you could have been watching Spider-Man 2, Superman 2 and other comic book movies and inserted the current characters without changing very much of the story.
Speaking of Spider-Man, it seems in the first two-thirds of the movie, during the rare actions scenes, Wonder Woman turned her lasso into Spidey's web-shooter in that it reminded me of the old Spider-Man cartoon from the 60s, which often showed Spider-Man swinging above the city skyline, webs attaching to the clouds instead of buildings. Also, speaking of Superman, her learning to fly went much smoother than Man Of Steel's.
I'm not sure if the comic book movies have been overdone, or that looking at age fifty in my rearview mirror I've outgrown the genre, or studio control is destroying the art of film makers but lately something has made these movies very "run of the mill." I tend to go with the destruction of art in favor of overly copied and pasted comfortable themes, which much like other types of duplications - degrade with each replication. Which sadly, leads be to believe that She Is The New Savior is too original to ever see the darkness of a movie theater.
If you are willing to suspend any semblance of belief, even within the confines of the story's established reality, I recommend this movie. It is several steps down from the first Wonder Woman film, but as the genre is increasing geared more toward audiences of children rather than adults, it is still an enjoyable way to recapture youth, if just for a moment.
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Thank you,
Joe
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