Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 2020 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
30
Mixed:
24
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins’ long-awaited sequel, is a much better film. It’s not that it’s lacking in chaos. (With a running time of 2 hours and 31 minutes, it's not lacking in much.) It just uses chaos more judiciously. That's fitting for a film about wretched excess, about getting what you want and realizing that maybe you were better off without it.
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Jenkins has said that she would have liked the film to be 15 minutes longer. Some viewers might have liked it to be 15 minutes shorter. But, for most of the running time, they will be happy to be in Wonder Woman's uplifting company. In its old-fashioned, uncynical way, WW84 is one of the most enjoyable blockbusters to be released since 1984.
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While the reteaming of Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins provides the expected thrills and excitement, this sequel shares the significant flaw of its predecessor: Both films graft an unwieldy and effects-heavy finale onto a movie that had managed to create relatable characters and situations, even when both are larger than life.
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The first film was set during the happiest time in human history: World War I. A tormented Wonder Woman took to the trenches and endured a solid hour of smoke and soot. Squint and you could maybe spot the main character. Wonder Woman 1984, by contrast, is visually dazzling with kaleidoscopic color and buoyant action sequences. The plot, thank Ares, is no longer so self-serious, even if it is a bit knotty.
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The margins of the movie are so curious: there is an entire graduate thesis to be written about how a film starring a one-time Miss Israel features a subplot about Egypt magically erecting a giant wall within its borders, or how its 1980s aesthetics are inexplicably paired with modern moviemaking bloat. But the overriding keyword of Wonder Woman 1984 is “conventional.”...Which is fine, for now. Let’s watch these superpowered gods rumble amongst themselves. We can worry about our mortal world tomorrow.
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Wonder Woman 1984 is director/co-writer Patty Jenkins’ much lighter, somewhat campy follow up to her World War I-set 2017 hit film, though a lot has to do with the new retro time frame. While not quite up to par with its predecessor, the Reagan-era sequel returns Gal Gadot as the Amazon princess with the bulletproof bracelets, introduces a couple worthy foes, and is a pretty fun time even if the extremely busy “1984” almost wears out its welcome at a hefty two and a half hours.
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IndieWireDec 15, 2020
Wonder Woman 1984 is all about playing with magic and wishes and desires, only to see them lead to horrible ramifications, instant gratification, and the revelation that lying is never without consequence. Those are some big swings, and not every single one lands, but the ones that do are both joyous and genuinely worth pondering.
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Wonder Woman is not a horrible film and gets a very mediocre good from me. I liked it for what it is, but the expectation of something bigger and better was not met, and honestly, what I prefer in big-budget movies. I think this will be the general reaction to the film, and this is probably why, especially if you were expecting something as spectacular as the first Wonder Woman.
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Wonder Woman 1984 is overlong, tonally inconsistent, and poorly paced. Although it raises the bar during its final hour, the viewer has to navigate about 90 minutes of action-deficient, sometimes nonsensical narrative to get to the point where the title character (again played to perfection by Gal Gadot) does something other than moon over her lost love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).
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For the first hour and a half, WW84 is a delightful flight of escapist fancy, with Diana and Steve's love story ensconcing itself comfortably, if a bit talkily, within the confines of an action adventure. Then, at the 90 minute mark, it’s as if Jenkins remembers her other deliverables, in the form of special effects, epic global crises and a plotty, ever-more-muddled story line that metastasizes into something much darker and more violent.
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Is Wonder Woman 1984 entertaining? Sure, it’s fun, hits all the right superhero marks, and visually, the 1980-something world is a technicolor throwback to behold. But if our heroine is supposed to represent the good and hope for all humanity, one has to wonder who specifically this humanity is reserved for.
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WW84 is far from perfect: its length and fumbling of Minerva’s arc are chief among its sins, but equally there are no denying its simple, vibrant charms. Much like Christopher Reeves as Superman, Gal Gadot simply is Wonder Woman – and this latest entry is undoubtedly her most fun, spectacular and charming yet.
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Large adult sad boys who want to take over the world and launch it into an apocalypse is something we’ve seen before (see: Loki in Avengers, Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Luther and Doomsday in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Steppenwolf in Justice League). This formulaic story is something fit for the other guys. The more time spent on it, the less time WW1984 spends being wondrous.
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RogerEbert.comDec 23, 2020
Gadot remains a winning and winsome figure in “Wonder Woman 1984,” and she retains her authentic connection with the audience, but the machinery around her has grown larger and unwieldy. Maybe that was inevitable, the urge in crafting a sequel to make everything wilder and brasher, more sprawling and complicated. In the process, though, the quality that made the original film such a delight has been squashed almost entirely.
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Wiig is terrific, but there’s just not enough of her. It truly is a wonder to see an A-lister like Chris Pine embrace the traditional female support role of the pretty sidekick so winningly, while Gadot is as smooth as silk and never less than watchable. The team is there, but this is most definitely a sequel.
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The sensibility of the earlier production has been transformed, despite Ms. Gadot’s continuing authority. Wit has been replaced by feverish caricature, feeling by sentimentality, and Wonder Woman is left with almost nothing to do for long stretches of a very long and disjointed story.
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Jenkins had an opportunity to build on the flawed but rousing headlining debut of DC's greatest woman warrior. Instead, she delivered the modern DC Extended Universe's Superman III. It's a lumpen mass of half-ideas and glaring fan service, topped by a horrendous montage ending that is clearly designed to inspire hope, courage, and kindness, but will more likely make everyone wonder if that was why they waited two and a half hours.
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The PlaylistDec 15, 2020
A movie that is fundamentally ill-conceived, poorly written, and missing most of the basic charms that made the original “Wonder Woman” such a delight (minus the last act). Directed again by Patty Jenkins, the film is also something of a nonsensical mess narratively, even by the most lenient and forgiving standards of superhero movies where fantastical, impossible things routinely occur. Suspension of disbelief is crucial to this genre, but ‘WW84’ is constantly breaking or conveniently upgrading its rules in ways that definitely break or at least always test your suspension of disbelief.
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