On December 25, 2020, WW84 was released to theaters and for streaming on HBO Max, and I was able to watch it from the comfort of my own home for the first time. Approximately 66 years have passed since the events of the first Wonder Woman movie, leaving audiences watching WW84 with an ’80s mindset. Overall, this movie did not live up to its predecessor but was a satisfactory sequel.
The movie starts once again with a scene of young Diana living on Paradise Island. Right out the gate, I was enjoying the movie with the action and seeing Diana grow, but I was also wondering what the point was of this scene. The lesson seemed to be “patience”, but I still don’t understand how that connects to the rest of the plot. If anything, this scene was just cool to watch.
After this, we get to meet Barbara (Kristen Wiig), who is one of the villains. I thought she was a really intriguing and relatable character, for she wasn’t sure of herself and wanted to be “more popular” like Diana (Gal Gadot), so I found her more likable. I was sad when she turned out to be the villain and wished she and Diana would have teamed up. I think it would have been cool for audiences to see two strong women working together.
Speaking of villains, this movie had Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), who I thought wasn’t a traditional villain, but that’s okay. His whole motivation was to become rich and powerful, which is a typical villain trope, and he did this by becoming a wishing stone. This was confusing to me as a watcher because I wasn’t really sure what his powers were and how they worked. I still am not sure after watching the movie what was really going on other than that the God of Lies created the stone that gave him wish-granting powers.
Other than the villains, I thought it was cool that Steve (Chris Pine) was back, and he really helped Diana overcome her heartache so she could activate her full potential. After Diana let go and realized Steve was dead forever, we get an amazing scene of her flying. I thought this scene really captured Diana’s growth which I think is important to show in a superhero movie.
One last thing that I really enjoyed in this movie was the father-son relationship between Maxwell Lord and his son, Alistar. I love how what made Lord stop trying to gain power and destroy people’s lives was the love for his son. I think movies with family relationships are especially powerful because that kind of love is so pure, as demonstrated at the end of this movie.
WW84 didn’t surpass the original movie, but it was nice to see another Wonder Woman movie with a strong female lead. Although there were amazingly choreographed fight scenes and the movie had a nice overall message, the plot was just hard to follow. It will not be one of my favorite superhero movies for sure, and I don’t know if I will rewatch it, but I think that if you are a Wonder Woman fan this is definitely worth the watch.