Wonder Woman Out Dec 16th

[Older Beholder]

I liked the movie a lot. One of DC's better efforts for me.
It was a lot of fun, I thought it did a great job of capturing the 80's Saturday morning cartoon vibe.

The plot was gonzo, but in a way that I enjoyed.
I liked that the villain wasn't really any one single person, but rather the greed and selfishness in all of us.
Pretty relevant with everything happening in the world at the moment, and tied in perfectly with the 80's theme.

 

[trappedslider]

 

[Argyle King]

I watched the movie again during the past weekend. My date hadn't seen it, so we went to the theater.

I hesitated to call WW84 "bad" before, but (after a second viewing) I think I am leaning toward saying it's an overall below-average movie.

There are a lot of things in the movie which work well. Chris Pine's fish-out-of-water comedy works well, and he has generally good chemistry with Gal Gadot. I also think that Pedro Pascal does a pretty good job of working with the material he was given.

At the same time, a lot of aspects of the movie seem disjointed. My impression (after watching the movie again) is that the movie tried to be too many different movies at once and fell somewhat short of doing any of them well. The opening sequel with young Dianna was pretty good; the movie was an okay-ish romantic comedy, an okay-ish "nerdy girl with glasses turns out to be hot" story, a somewhat less-than-good father-son story arc, and etc; but none of the component parts really stuck the landing. The parts which were good got lost in the shuffle of everything else going on. I'm not sure WW84 knows what kind of movie it is trying to be.

Things which stuck out as bad to me: the method of turning the jet invisible, a surprising number of racial/cultural stereotypes being used to drive plot, "flying" by lassoing the clouds, and a bunch of stuff in the middle of the movie which dragged enough that I literally nodded off for a moment.

Things which stuck out as good: The girl who played Young Dianna did a really good job, Chris Pine and Gal Gadot both do well with the material they have to work with, and Pedro Pascal seemed believable as his character. (The mall robbery scene and Gal's pose toward the end would have made a pretty cool Coke commercial.)

Misc Thoughts: The Astera story was cool, but it seemed mostly pointless beyond just being an excuse to put WW in a different outfit (and presumably attempt to sell merch based on the golden armor); various parts of the movie would have been really good in isolation, but didn't seem to connect to each other in a coherent way; and (despite having component parts which are enjoyable) I think the end result of the film taken as a whole falls short of reaching the heights of the first film or films like Shazam. I still don't think I would say the film is "bad," but I certainly wouldn't call it "good" either. There are parts of the film which are well done, but the overall effort leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm inclined to say that it does more to tilt the public view of DCs efforts more toward negatives than positives.

 

[Zardnaar]

I watched the movie again during the past weekend. My date hadn't seen it, so we went to the theater.

I hesitated to call WW84 "bad" before, but (after a second viewing) I think I am leaning toward saying it's an overall below-average movie.

There are a lot of things in the movie which work well. Chris Pine's fish-out-of-water comedy works well, and he has generally good chemistry with Gal Gadot. I also think that Pedro Pascal does a pretty good job of working with the material he was given.

At the same time, a lot of aspects of the movie seem disjointed. My impression (after watching the movie again) is that the movie tried to be too many different movies at once and fell somewhat short of doing any of them well. The opening sequel with young Dianna was pretty good; the movie was an okay-ish romantic comedy, an okay-ish "nerdy girl with glasses turns out to be hot" story, a somewhat less-than-good father-son story arc, and etc; but none of the component parts really stuck the landing. The parts which were good got lost in the shuffle of everything else going on. I'm not sure WW84 knows what kind of movie it is trying to be.

Things which stuck out as bad to me: the method of turning the jet invisible, a surprising number of racial/cultural stereotypes being used to drive plot, "flying" by lassoing the clouds, and a bunch of stuff in the middle of the movie which dragged enough that I literally nodded off for a moment.

Things which stuck out as good: The girl who played Young Dianna did a really good job, Chris Pine and Gal Gadot both do well with the material they have to work with, and Pedro Pascal seemed believable as his character. (The mall robbery scene and Gal's pose toward the end would have made a pretty cool Coke commercial.)

Misc Thoughts: The Astera story was cool, but it seemed mostly pointless beyond just being an excuse to put WW in a different outfit (and presumably attempt to sell merch based on the golden armor); various parts of the movie would have been really good in isolation, but didn't seem to connect to each other in a coherent way; and (despite having component parts which are enjoyable) I think the end result of the film taken as a whole falls short of reaching the heights of the first film or films like Shazam. I still don't think I would say the film is "bad," but I certainly wouldn't call it "good" either. There are parts of the film which are well done, but the overall effort leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm inclined to say that it does more to tilt the public view of DCs efforts more toward negatives than positives.

Fair review. I enjoyed it in the dumb fun category. Maybe it was the popcorn idk.

 

[Argyle King]

Fair review. I enjoyed it in the dumb fun category. Maybe it was the popcorn idk.

I think, for me, I'm left with a lot of curiosity about the movie. Was there some sort of internal conflict about what type of movie was being written or produced?

I think there is a lot of good in the movie, but (for me) it somehow seemed disjointed and unsure of what kind of movie it wanted to be. (FWIW, I feel similarly about Rogue One, but most people love that movie.)

Of the movies which are currently offered in the local theater (under limited Covid options,) I believe WW84 was likely my best option. There are simply aspects of it which seemed oddly constructed as an overall story.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think, for me, I'm left with a lot of curiosity about the movie. Was there some sort of internal conflict about what type of movie was being written or produced?

I think there is a lot of good in the movie, but (for me) it somehow seemed disjointed and unsure of what kind of movie it wanted to be. (FWIW, I feel similarly about Rogue One, but most people love that movie.)

Of the movies which are currently offered in the local theater (under limited Covid options,) I believe WW84 was likely my best option. There are simply aspects of it which seemed oddly constructed as an overall story.

Messy film not as good a the first one. Seen two movies at the theatre somewhat recently options very limited. WW had maybe 100 people the other had 6.

 

[Imaculata]

I think some of you are being too kind. This movie was a mess from start to finish. It is tonally inconsistent. The story does not make much sense. The intro with young Diana goes on for far too long, and doesn't seem to have much relevance to the main plot of the film, nor does Diana learn any lesson from it. Pedro Pascal is terrible in this, and is much too goofy to feel like a threat. And if you think a bit longer on Chris Pine now inhabiting the body of someone else, it gets morally iffy as well. Sure, having sex with Gal Gadot against your will is probably not the worst thing in the world. But there is the issue of consent regardless. And the plot didn't need to be that way. I'm baffled that they wrote that in, and then never address the moral issues with it.

 

[Mallus]

I think some of you are being too kind. This movie was a mess from start to finish.

I wasn't being kind. I honestly found the movie to be delightful; a smart, conscious updating of the sort of high-budget, high-concept action-comedy Hollywood made during my teenage years. But I admit, this film probably reads differently if you don't have affection for 1980s pop culture.

The story does not make much sense.

It makes Superfriends sense. It makes Ghostbusters sense. By design, I'd wager.

Pedro Pascal is terrible in this, and is much too goofy to feel like a threat.

I think Pascal deserves an Oscar for making me feel a shred of sympathy for a partial-Donald Trump expy.

But there is the issue of consent regardless. And the plot didn't need to be that way. I'm baffled that they wrote that in, and then never address the moral issues with it.

I don't think the film was obligated to address the moral/consent issue regarding the body-swapping/stealing any more than it did, ie Trevor acknowledging this had to end and Diana revoking her wish.

You certainly could use a similar fantastical conceit to explore issues of consent. Noah Hawley's show Legion did it, to devastating effect with the character of Sydney. But I don't think there is, again, an obligation to do so inherent in every body-swapping narrative. I'm not trying to criticize people who were legitimately made uncomfortable by WW84, but I don't think the consent criticism as criticism is particularly apt.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I wasn't being kind. I honestly found the movie to be delightful; a smart, conscious updating of the sort of high-budget, high-concept action-comedy Hollywood made during my teenage years. But I admit, this film probably reads differently if you don't have affection for 1980s pop culture.

This was what I was thinking while watching it.

You can set a movie in the 80s. Or you can make an 80s movie. There's a difference between the two.

This was a dayglo, pop-art movie playing in 80s tropes with a big budget.

I happen to agree that there were parts that were tonally a mess, but not the same things everyone else is criticizing; it was the attempts to force in certain requirements of modern superhero films and required Wonder Woman lore that made it less than it should have been.

(That said, there is a fine line between, "That's dumb because 80s movies are dumb in that specific way," and "That's dumb because the scriptwriters were not paying enough attention.")

 

[Argyle King]

I think some of you are being too kind. This movie was a mess from start to finish. It is tonally inconsistent. The story does not make much sense. The intro with young Diana goes on for far too long, and doesn't seem to have much relevance to the main plot of the film, nor does Diana learn any lesson from it. Pedro Pascal is terrible in this, and is much too goofy to feel like a threat. And if you think a bit longer on Chris Pine now inhabiting the body of someone else, it gets morally iffy as well. Sure, having sex with Gal Gadot against your will is probably not the worst thing in the world. But there is the issue of consent regardless. And the plot didn't need to be that way. I'm baffled that they wrote that in, and then never address the moral issues with it.

For me, it's far from the worst outing from DC. Despite many of the flaws, I would still put WW84 above many of the other DC movies.

Aside from that, I've been trying to be more open-minded about what other people like and not so quickly jumping to negatives.

I think there was potential for it to be a good film, and I can see some promise in the various pieces, but the overall product fell short for me. As said above, I feel similarly about Rogue One: a lot of good individual pieces, but the pieces never seem to connect in a way which makes an overall good movie.