Anytime Honest Trailers or HISHE or Pitch Meetings or CinemaSins comes up one has to remember that if you did enjoy the movie they’re describing to not take anything personal since your investment in the movie isn’t really under attack. It’s the movie that’s taking the brunt of the video’s hilarious take on what works and what doesn’t since to be fair, Wonder Woman 1984 did kind of fall way short of the original movie, which is not aging quite as well as a lot of people might think. Maybe it’s the whole ‘girl power’ vibe or perhaps it’s the idea that Diana is a little too naive even decades later when one might think she would be quite a bit wiser and more worldly, but somehow, this movie really didn’t make her appear to be that great of a character and took things back to the simpler times of the 80s, whether it was intentional or not, when people could just watch Wonder Woman and think that she was awesome without worrying about anything else that might be going on around her, like the body-snatching that took place when she wished for Steve to return to her, or the fact that DC has kind of bungled things in such a huge way that explaining the absence of other superheroes that might be enticed to take note of a world-changing event set off by Maxwell Lord. Admittedly, the MCU has done the same thing as they were building their own franchise, but after Joss Whedon’s Justice League, the overall feeling is that DC has separated their heroes in order to make it clear that they each exist in their own separate universe until it’s time to bring them together again. Right, moving on.
It’s probably a good thing that this movie didn’t get to premiere entirely in the theaters since even if it has led the box office in consecutive weeks there isn’t really that high of a bar to meet as of now considering how many huge blockbusters are still being kept in reserve. Gaining the top of a box office that’s still reeling from the pandemic is kind of like claiming victory over an opponent that’s been intentionally hobbled, there’s really no way to celebrate without looking like a massive tool that’s been used to further a goal that’s kind of useless at this point. Seriously, the box office isn’t an accurate measuring stick at this point when it comes to movies since any movie that’s able to gain enough attention could top the box office right now, and one of the only reasons that Wonder Woman 1984 has done this is because it’s one of the biggest movies out there at the moment. To be certain, it does feel as though Black Widow would have given this movie a serious run for the money, and might have even topped it, had Disney been willing to let the movie off the chain at this time.
But picking up on a couple of problematic moments in this movie, Steve’s return being one of them, is the fact that the wishing kind of went out of control and implied that humanity would do the worst possible job of wishing for things that they could, meaning some would wish others dead, which is feasible, unfortunately, while others would wish for things they hadn’t earned, which again, is believable. But what about those that wished to recover from a serious injury, or a wasting illness, or used their wishes selflessly for others? Lord’s intent was to destabilize the world obviously, but how about all those people throughout the world that he was somehow reaching and granting his power to that wished for things that were completely selfless and benefited other people? The ‘all or nothing’ deal is horrible to think about really, but Diana’s wish was relatively easy to renounce compared to that of many others since the man she fell in love with after a short period of knowing him was already dead and gone, and the right thing to do would be to return the body of the man he’d inhabited back to the original owner. But all those wishes made by those to help others weren’t even shown, likely because it would have made people question Wonder Woman’s motives and it would have brought up the difficult idea that humanity is not purely evil when it comes to wishing for certain things. It does feel as though the movie might have opened a big can of worms had it explored that option.
It does sound as though there will be a Wonder Woman 3 coming down the pipeline eventually, but the hope is that thing will even out this next time and perhaps the girl power moments will give way to something a little more contemporary. I know, beware what you wish for.
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