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shallowness) wrote2021-05-31 02:25 pm
shallowness) wrote2021-05-31 02:25 pm
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WW84
So, I watched Wonder Woman 1984 on Blu-Ray (my first Blu-Ray) now that I've got a player. It was a few weeks ago, actually, but it took me some time to work through the extras.
I had a mixed reaction to this, although I didn’t want to, but I don’t think it was as good as the first. It’s pretty entertaining (if overlong). But I don’t think there was an awesome bit that felt as sustained as in the first film (admittedly, this could be my eyesight WRT the action scenes, but I moved from ‘Well, this is interesting, if poorly lit’ in the final Diana/Cheetah fight to ‘Another act? End it already, she needs to save the world’.) Then there were bits that didn’t work for me: I was too busy going ‘Whuh? But how?’ to be swept along by Steve’s return and his and Diana’s reunion, although they are cute, especially as they reversed who was the fish out of water, and the goodbye before her renunciation of her wish was moving.
I possibly had lost sight of this being in the DCEU mode i.e. daft science fantasy involving gods. For all that the setting was different (loved the use of eighties colour tones) it sticks to some of the previous film’s patterns: a female antagonist to fight and a male antagonist to stop from destroying the world, Diana having to fight internal battles (that involve a lot of action) to get there. Although her powers have developed on the one hand, her wish weakened her on the other. As for Max Lorde, once you realise he’s a Trump stand-in, (they freely admit on the features that they’ve adapted him a lot from the comics version) then all the TRUTH versus LIES positioning makes sense. But I was a bit disappointed that WW84 concentrated on a familiar father-son dynamic and wrote out the mother.
Diana-Barbara was much more interesting and relatable (and was it me, or did we not see Barbara renounce her wish or what happened to her? I.e. she might come back. If so, they might want to rethink the Cheetah look.) I was reminded a bit of Selina in Batman Returns in Barbara’s arc, but it was from an even more female point of view, with them pushing Barbara’s social awkwardness, and the possibility of a real friendship between her and Diana being stymied by Diana’s need to keep herself separate from the world to protect herself emotionally. (Also, Babs, sweetie, you did get to go to university and work in the Smithsonian, even if they didn’t appreciate you there, you still have your privileges.) But the stuff about heels, everyday sexism and how she wrongly took Diana’s words about not knowing what to do with the power were really relatable. I liked the relatively restrained build-up of the transformation to Cheetah. (But then the film did nothing with her wanting to be No. 1 alongside Maxwell’s desire to be No. 1, except in the very general sense of everyone’s wishes hastening the end of civilisation.)
But although there was some cakeism – Diana hates guns and doesn’t want to punish the brainwashed, but my, those could be a lot of broken bones and that’s a lot of property damage, even in the mall scene – I loved being reminded that Diana’s superpower really is compassion, from her fighting style, the recurring protection of children, the way she talked to everyone. Gadot has come on some, the voiceovers were fine. At the same time, Diana’s struggle with grief and letting her lost love go was sympathetic. It almost justified bringing Steve back – he helped her learn how to fly! – although prepping her to be open to a new relationship with, say, Bruce seems a bit redundant now that Batffleck is no more and who knows what they’ll do with the DCEU. The flirting with That Guy was cute, if (as for much of the film) you didn’t think too much about the fact that his body was possessed by a ghost, essentially, and where did his soul/personhood go while his body was being used as it was?
I was oddly reminded of X-Men movies throughout – that franchise is obsessed with the White House, and although it was interesting to see an increasingly weakened Diana fight, and amusing to see Steve tussle with those one or two guys in The Girlfriend role,reminding me of X2’s White House action sequence did this no favours. But I was thinking more of the Presidential/Sentinel/broadcasting stuff in Days of Future Past, and Diana’s pride over making the airplane invisible (although interesting in that it referenced her father, and possible that that wasn’t consistent with the first movie) made me cough ‘X-Jet’ (or should I have coughed ‘Blackbird’?) And that whole bit where they flew through the fireworks very, very slowly, , I was thinking, ‘Is this a homage to Superman?’ rather than feeling the romantic mood, for I alsoI kept wondering why Diana wasn’t staring at Steve’s face some more. But then I was also cracking Kirk jokes about Steve and planes/modern technology.)
Oh, and people knew who Wonder Woman was in the eighties, not to mention Barbara being able to gen up on her so easily, which made Bruce finding out about her in the future seem less impressive. (Possibly Diana then set about erasing all the information about her, but that’s not where she was at the end of the film. For the sequel.) And her having all the memorabilia – sob, Etta – undercut her getting that picture in the future. It was amusing that Diana also basically had her own version of the Batcave.
The big reveal of the Amazonian armour was undercut by their having used it in promo material, (my WW84 calendar) and there was no explanation for the more colourful outfit she wore before that other than it’s the eighties.
The mid-credit scene was fun – I’m one of a small group of people who went ‘Asteria, THAT’S Principal Powers’s first name!’ Though it begged the question of why they couldn’t find a cameo for Lynda Carter in the first film.
Having said all that, the first film grew on me after I first saw it at the cinema and started rewatching it on DVD.
[Edited 9/12/23.]
I had a mixed reaction to this, although I didn’t want to, but I don’t think it was as good as the first. It’s pretty entertaining (if overlong). But I don’t think there was an awesome bit that felt as sustained as in the first film (admittedly, this could be my eyesight WRT the action scenes, but I moved from ‘Well, this is interesting, if poorly lit’ in the final Diana/Cheetah fight to ‘Another act? End it already, she needs to save the world’.) Then there were bits that didn’t work for me: I was too busy going ‘Whuh? But how?’ to be swept along by Steve’s return and his and Diana’s reunion, although they are cute, especially as they reversed who was the fish out of water, and the goodbye before her renunciation of her wish was moving.
I possibly had lost sight of this being in the DCEU mode i.e. daft science fantasy involving gods. For all that the setting was different (loved the use of eighties colour tones) it sticks to some of the previous film’s patterns: a female antagonist to fight and a male antagonist to stop from destroying the world, Diana having to fight internal battles (that involve a lot of action) to get there. Although her powers have developed on the one hand, her wish weakened her on the other. As for Max Lorde, once you realise he’s a Trump stand-in, (they freely admit on the features that they’ve adapted him a lot from the comics version) then all the TRUTH versus LIES positioning makes sense. But I was a bit disappointed that WW84 concentrated on a familiar father-son dynamic and wrote out the mother.
Diana-Barbara was much more interesting and relatable (and was it me, or did we not see Barbara renounce her wish or what happened to her? I.e. she might come back. If so, they might want to rethink the Cheetah look.) I was reminded a bit of Selina in Batman Returns in Barbara’s arc, but it was from an even more female point of view, with them pushing Barbara’s social awkwardness, and the possibility of a real friendship between her and Diana being stymied by Diana’s need to keep herself separate from the world to protect herself emotionally. (Also, Babs, sweetie, you did get to go to university and work in the Smithsonian, even if they didn’t appreciate you there, you still have your privileges.) But the stuff about heels, everyday sexism and how she wrongly took Diana’s words about not knowing what to do with the power were really relatable. I liked the relatively restrained build-up of the transformation to Cheetah. (But then the film did nothing with her wanting to be No. 1 alongside Maxwell’s desire to be No. 1, except in the very general sense of everyone’s wishes hastening the end of civilisation.)
But although there was some cakeism – Diana hates guns and doesn’t want to punish the brainwashed, but my, those could be a lot of broken bones and that’s a lot of property damage, even in the mall scene – I loved being reminded that Diana’s superpower really is compassion, from her fighting style, the recurring protection of children, the way she talked to everyone. Gadot has come on some, the voiceovers were fine. At the same time, Diana’s struggle with grief and letting her lost love go was sympathetic. It almost justified bringing Steve back – he helped her learn how to fly! – although prepping her to be open to a new relationship with, say, Bruce seems a bit redundant now that Batffleck is no more and who knows what they’ll do with the DCEU. The flirting with That Guy was cute, if (as for much of the film) you didn’t think too much about the fact that his body was possessed by a ghost, essentially, and where did his soul/personhood go while his body was being used as it was?
I was oddly reminded of X-Men movies throughout – that franchise is obsessed with the White House, and although it was interesting to see an increasingly weakened Diana fight, and amusing to see Steve tussle with those one or two guys in The Girlfriend role,reminding me of X2’s White House action sequence did this no favours. But I was thinking more of the Presidential/Sentinel/broadcasting stuff in Days of Future Past, and Diana’s pride over making the airplane invisible (although interesting in that it referenced her father, and possible that that wasn’t consistent with the first movie) made me cough ‘X-Jet’ (or should I have coughed ‘Blackbird’?) And that whole bit where they flew through the fireworks very, very slowly, , I was thinking, ‘Is this a homage to Superman?’ rather than feeling the romantic mood, for I alsoI kept wondering why Diana wasn’t staring at Steve’s face some more. But then I was also cracking Kirk jokes about Steve and planes/modern technology.)
Oh, and people knew who Wonder Woman was in the eighties, not to mention Barbara being able to gen up on her so easily, which made Bruce finding out about her in the future seem less impressive. (Possibly Diana then set about erasing all the information about her, but that’s not where she was at the end of the film. For the sequel.) And her having all the memorabilia – sob, Etta – undercut her getting that picture in the future. It was amusing that Diana also basically had her own version of the Batcave.
The big reveal of the Amazonian armour was undercut by their having used it in promo material, (my WW84 calendar) and there was no explanation for the more colourful outfit she wore before that other than it’s the eighties.
The mid-credit scene was fun – I’m one of a small group of people who went ‘Asteria, THAT’S Principal Powers’s first name!’ Though it begged the question of why they couldn’t find a cameo for Lynda Carter in the first film.
Having said all that, the first film grew on me after I first saw it at the cinema and started rewatching it on DVD.
[Edited 9/12/23.]