Neil M.

If that's the case, this movie is even worse than I thought. I was going to raise my rating a little because I felt that there were elements that I liked. I can't stand Snyder's films and those really belong where I rated this one.

They should have had fun with the 80s setting. The problem with the nerd wanting to become something greater trope is that it's been overused in superhero films, not just 80s films. Batman Returns and Batman forever spring to mind. I think the 80s setting was mainly used to create a villain (wannabe oil tycoon) and a physical threat (Cold War nuclear annihilation). Like others have said, they really didn't even embrace the 80s in the film.

Eric F

We're about the same age, the fascination with that decade kind of dumbfounds me. They probably went back to the 80's because of the popularity of Stranger Things- but the movie could have taken place in any time period after Steve's death. On top of that, they didn't really use many pop culture references to the 80's at all.

Movie was a disappointment.

fujishig

The problem is he became obsessed with granting people's wishes. Like I understood why he went and got the wish from the oil guy and then went on to the other oil guys. But then he was like "I need to grant all the wishes from everyone" for no reason. At one point he's even like "I'm not granting them fast enough." If the wishes were causing him to lose his health then, I dunno, stop granting so many wishes, especially for stuff like getting rid of traffic. Then you have the ultimate shortcut of him going "hey, you wish for this, right, just say yes" and then taking whatever he wants.

Maybe the crystal's power was making him want to grant all the wishes but this certainly wasn't spelled out. Between that, his son getting a wish that went nowhere, Cheetah somehow getting two wishes, Cheetah deciding that her wish was to become an apex predator animal like person, etc. it really needed some fleshing out. Also what the heck did the god behind it get out of it? They didn't explore that at all.

That's before thinking too deeply about it and having people wish for their dead relatives back, or something like a cure for AIDs... without seeing a drawback in person they're going to give that up? All the wishes we saw that were revoked were selfish or self serving.

Palaver

Not to go down a tangent, but Quantum Leap is a poor example here. Sam actually stayed in his body during each leap. He just appeared like the other person to the surrounding people. The actual person he swapped places with was held in some sort of stasis in the present. I seem to recall Al actually would speak to the actual person on occasion.

fujishig

We've talked about it in other threads but just look at basically any 80s raunchy comedy and you'll find some form of what we would consider rape today, mainly done for laughs. That kind of tells you how times have changed even from back then (and this movie goes out of its way to tell you how harassment has changed)

Noonan

"Fuck her! Fuck her brains out! You know she wants it."


Yeah....

EddieMoney

Came for WW84 reviews, ended up in a Tumblr thread.

IBJoel

The theme of the movie is the failure of the excess of the 1980s (and I would argue specifically American consumerism/personal gain by any cost that persists to today), so of course we are going to see selfish wishes, that's what the movie is about. I also felt that the addictive nature of the powers was quite evident and was an allegory for rampant cocaine usage during the decade. Everything everyone wanted was "more more more" and it's never enough.

Cheetah got two wishes because one was granted by the crystal and was was granted by Lord.

"apex predator" makes perfect sense, because she was sheepish at the beginning and furthers the theme of her losing more and more humanity. I see this a LOT in bodybuilders on Instagram and how their political views become essentially Social Darwinism. "I need to be bigger and stronger and anyone who isn't like me is weak and pathetic".

I think the film's strongest, most well-articulated point is its theme.

Giantrobo

Another theme was not taking shortcuts

Giantrobo

One disturbing theme is Wonder Woman can in fact be Dickmatized.

Giantrobo

I watched the cameo again and she is still smokin' hot.

fujishig

I'm probably just super shallow but I didn't see a theme against consumerism or the excess of the 80s besides rallying against the cold war and the building up of nukes. Max is a con man who is obviously swindling people but I didn't see that as a message against consumerism (especially in a movie that shoehorned in golden winged armor presumably to sell more toys). It did feel like the message was every adult was a terrible person in the 80s unless they were a bum or were a soul from the 1930s, but I'm still not sure what to think about that.

Agreed about the drug/cocaine thing and Max being obsessed by wishes. Especially in the scene where the stone turns to dust and he becomes the stone.

The humanity thing I understand, but it still seemed like Barbara wanted to be the peak of humanity and noticed and adored by all more than she wanted to be a were-cheetah and an outcast (unless that's the monkeys paw of the wish). It did seem like some of Max's terms (when he was granting wishes and taking away from everyone) were giving stuff to Barbara so maybe it was less of a second wish and more getting stuff from other people, but maybe I misread that scene.

It also feels like she screwed up because if she had just kept the powers based on Diana, she presumably would have been immune to being electrocuted too (that was a terrible scene by the way... the viewer has to remember/infer that Diana is immune to electricity because of her relationship to Zeus, and adding in golden metal armor doesn't help in telling the story of why Cheetah is going to be electrocuted and not Diana)

Abob Teff

That’s my point ... I imagine the story was initially written with the wishes being shortcuts for most of the characters (Barbara’s short cut to popularity and power, Max’s shortcut to wealth and power, Diana’s shortcut to love). The material was ripe, but they dropped the ball somewhere and never made the proper connections. Instead they went with “truth” as the moral story of the wishes, which just turned out cheesy in the end.

Abob’s Studio Exec Notes: emphasize the shortcut connection. Have a pseudo-romance between Barbara and Diana that builds their friendship and highlights their jealousies of one another. If you must keep Steve in the story, make him a source of friction between Barbara and Diana (Barbara is now threatened that Diana’s love is back). Allow Barbara and Diana to become partners in the detective part of the story, which will, again, build the bond between them. Barbara finds out Diana is WW, makes her wish then. When WW realizes Barbara got powers and how, WW breaks out the “you are taking shortcuts” card. Have them turn on one another at that point. Show more of Lord’s downfall, explain why he knows about the stone — all of his searching for oil was a cover for searching for the stone and it has brought him down. Maybe the stone is the god coming back, not just a creation of the god?

I guess my point is ... the movie took shortcuts to its detriment. I think there are shadows of all the things I suggested in the existing movie, as if they were there and then cut out.

There was a dropped line during all the wish chaos when Lord said “And I will take your life force!” right before he started healing. It was taking a toll on him until he realized he could “recharge” by draining the people making the wishes. That is why he was trying to reach every person at one time. Again, hints of things that just are not connected well: the holding hands line with the televangelist, hints of him recharging after some wishes.

As for IBJoel’s theme of excess and greed in the 80s ... I agree it was ripe to use that theme and there are hints of it, but again they failed to connect the faintly doodled dots.

Artman

This was tough to get through. (and I still skipped ahead a few times) I don't mind the change in tone, but I do mind things like editing, writing, acting, directing... all woefully under expectations here. It's a shame because there was such good will coming off of the first one, and they had time and resources for this film...and they just dropped the ball. Post JL WW3 would be of interest, but it'd better be damn good.

Dr. DVD

I agree about them not having fun. The trailer with "Blue Monday" blasting seemed to indicate they were going to completely embrace the decade and give us a bunch of fun action and a retro soundtrack , a kind of more family friendly Atomic Blonde. Instead we got one lesser known track by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and a bunch of 80s movie cliches, most of which one would find on a straight to video attempt at a superhero movie I might add.

fujishig

But Lord was obsessed with granting everyone's wishes earlier than that. He realized he could heal himself with people but even before that he was granting wishes left and right. You'd think he would do a few really important ones, then get a few chumps to grant wishes to and take their health, but nope he needed to grant all wishes at once.

VinVega

It is her Kryptonite (her relationship with Steve). Every hero has a flaw and that is her's I believe. Maybe you want a different flaw for her?

Mr. Flix

I don't really have much to add beyond what several other people have said. What a disappointment. I've been a huge fan of the character since I was a kid and had a crush on Lynda Carter. It's absolutely baffling to me that no one involved in this movie's creation took a step back and recognized all of its script issues and the fact that it was such a step down in quality from the first movie. People in this forum seem to have more easily put their finger on this movie's many shortcomings than the creative team that presumably got paid huge bucks to produce it. It's baffling.

I do have one question, though: is it possible at any point during this movie's pre-production that Chris Pine's involvement wasn't guaranteed? I can't help but wonder if "Steve in another man's body" was a concept born out of the idea that perhaps Pine wouldn't be involved, and that's why they went with that angle, essentially re-casting Trevor. Probably not, but I'm grasping at straws as to why they went with that baffling, unnecessary angle.

To me, that's the worst of the movie's many sins. Not only was it completely unnecessary and opened up a whole can of worms, but the fact that Diana so easily accepts that it's him (in a matter of seconds), and then their relationship proceeds as if she sees him (physically) as Trevor (even though she doesn't). Shallow as it may sound, a person's physical appearance DOES play a factor in a relationship. Sure, the guy Steve "possessed" was also good looking and physically similar in a lot of ways, but all of Diana's memories of him are connected to a man who looks like Pine, not some stranger. If my wife's brain was transplanted into another woman's body, it would take a certain period of time -- probably a long time -- for me to adjust and see her as my wife. Diana seems to immediately accept the physical transformation with little effort, and that just doesn't ring true to me.

Ugh, what a bafflingly stupid plot point.

fujishig

That was exactly my initial thought, "I could've sworn Chris Pine is in this, did they replace him with Polaha?" Until a few seconds later Pine is revealed and stays that way almost the entire movie.

The wish stone can produce nukes out of thin air and back again but...

I was wondering if this was too many cooks in the kitchen but this was Jenkins all the way through, right?

Troy Stiffler

I think it was all Jenkins. She was on WTF and talked a little about studios tinkering with WW. There's no telling what goes on.

I watched this twice, and still feel like we're watching different movies. I think it's a delight. It's just not dark and brooding and super serious like the Snyder DCEU. There's barely a villain. It's just sort of a fun, light story. It's sort of like a mixup of an actual girl movie and a superhero movie.

You guys are treating it like this year's Cats.

Artman

She's also been living a life for 60+yrs (unlike Captain America who woke up as if weeks had past by) wouldn't she at some point...move on? Have other relationships? Instead she's committed to a "I'll never love again" cage of sorts.

Just thought of this - how about Kathryn Bigelow for the next one? In a modern day, Winter Soldier-esque film - sign me up!

fujishig

I don't think it's Cats (though I haven't actually seen Cats) but I do think a lot of the backlash is because of expectations set from the previous movie. Maybe the complete shift in tone is too jarring for a lot of people, myself included. Note that my kids liked it ok though I'm sure a ton of stuff went over their heads.

I also wonder what the box office would have been for this.

Why So Blu?

That would be epic!

GoldenJCJ

Around 44% of us have rated this at 2 - 2.5 stars in the poll. While most of us don’t think it’s the worst movie of the year, many of us do consider it mediocre or average, there are A LOT of problems with the movie, mostly script problems. Which is unfortunate considering a solid once-over of the script could have prevented a lot of the issues.

This definitely seems to be a “Too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario and it really didn’t have to be.

When you look at it, many of the issues people are complaining about revolve around the “body switch” concept in the movie. Something that could have been easily avoided if anyone stepped back and looked over the script.

Remove the unneeded body switch nonsense, add a little more 80’s flare, and polish up the “wishing stone” stuff and you’d have a pretty damn highly rated movie, I bet.

IBJoel

As much as I've been defending it, I did give it a 2.5. My problems with the film lie primarily in technical issues, rather than artistic ones. I think this thing was killed in editing. Apparently WB has had the film locked for 6mo-1yr, so I can imagine if they'd been allowed to go in and use the COVID delays more effectively, it'd be a lot more polished.