So when it comes to the latest Wonder Woman movie, it's not exactly a secret that the film hasn't gotten a great reception. Even though the movie didn't get bad reviews (60% fresh on Rottentomatoes.com), the reception on the internet hasn't been positive.
Indeed, almost every prominent channel on Youtube has been very critical of the film. In these reviews 'Wonder Woman 1984' has gotten really negative feedback (some of it deserved) and the reviewers have been critical of the movie's overall quality.
Nevertheless, considering that there haven't been that many new movies that have been released lately, it wasn't a difficult to decision to gives this film a chance. I thought there was a solid chance that I would enjoy watching the film, so I had to give it a go.
Having now seen 'Wonder Woman 1984' a couple of weeks ago with my friend, I have to say that I actually managed to like the movie. It managed to entertain me, even though there are some obvious issues with its story and characters that need to be addressed.
Premise-wise, in this sequel, we're dealing with a story that this time takes place in 1984 (the first one took place during World War I). Our protagonist (Gal Gadot) - who doesn't age - now works as a museum worker at Smithsonian in Washington DC.
As a character, even though 'Diana' still has her super powers as a wonder woman that she has to use every now and then, she's trying to live her life as normally as possible. She has a regular job so that she could blend in with the rest of the population.
Catalyst-wise, the story in the movie gets going when a mysterious stone arrives at the museum. This dream stone - that the movie's villain, failed oil man Max (Pedro Pascal) is super interested in, is something that has some great powers.
Indeed, those who (including Wonder Woman's work partner) touch the dream stone and make an innocent wish, their wish is granted. This will naturally lead to either some silly or really dangerous things (first we get the silly stuff).
Not surprisingly, after the 'fun and games' part is over, things get really serious once the bad guy gets his hand on the item and gets to use its power. He makes a wish to 'become' the stone, which turns out to be a decision that has grave consequences for the world.
Plot-wise, this story vehicle - at least in my opinion - was a surprisingly strong one and is the reason that the movie works as well as it does. It gives the story potential and a real arc that the writers were able to utilize relatively well (this is a fantasy movie after all).
At the same time, just because this vehicle in the movie works and has a lot of potential, that doesn't mean that the writers were able to get everything right. There are clearly a lot of problems with the film that weigh down its quality quite significantly.
Among other things, the story has some really obvious plot holes that you'll notice right away as they happen. We have plot holes like Diana & Steve (Chris Pine) taking a trip with a fighter jet all the way from The U.S to Libya, which was just a big no no.
Character-wise, you have stuff like the female villain's (Kristen Wiig) arc being severely mishandled. Her turn from an introvert shy person to a popular one (thanks to the wish) and yet again to a villain (Cheetah) is just badly executed and makes no sense.
Furthermore, the movie is clearly overlong and has at least 30 minutes of material that should have been cut from the film. This stuff, like the montage of Steve trying different sets of clothes to look presentable is just something that doesn't work.
Still, when you put it all together, despite these obvious flaws in the story, at least in my case, they didn't prevent me from enjoying the film as a whole. There were some really good things about the movie that worked well and that countered its flaws.
Indeed, besides the wish-vehicle, Wonder Woman's character is a positive one and someone who has good, motherly qualities. The story, thanks to her, has an optimistic tone that deals with real emotions especially when we get to the last act and the film's climax.
In that sense, even though I do understand why people had a lot of problems with the movie, I think it's rather safe to say that people were a bit too hard on it. They were being too critical of its flaws and weren't completely honest about its good aspects.
After all, even though there were admittedly real problems with 'Wonder Woman 1984', that did make the film worse than it should have been, that's not all there is to it. We shouldn't really think that these mistakes were really that critical.
On the contrary, especially when you think of how uncritical critics were about some other films in this genre, ('Dark Knight' & 'Dark Knight Rises' etc.) they're being hypocritical here. They're being hypocritical and not judging 'Wonder Woman 1984' the way they judged those films.
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