Loading up on villains can work, of course, but only under specific conditions: Tim Burton's 1992 film Batman Returns famously recruited both Catwoman and the Penguin to great effect - but both of those characters had already established significant cultural footprints: beloved by Nerds, recognizable by Normals.
Have them stand in clear moral opposition to the hero, and move the story forward. Give them enough motivation, and screentime, to make an impact. The superhero film genre has been around for at least half a century, depending on whom you ask, and what strikes you watching WW84 in the year of our lord 2020 is how it still hasn't learned the most essential lesson of all: The film's climax - another CGI slugfest - takes place at night, which is a bit more forgiving, though not much. A sun-drenched flashback on Themyscira features computer-generated figures performing physical feats with a false weightlessness that defies both gravity and sense. WW84, however, sets up camp in the uncanny valley in its opening minutes. Wonder Woman's focus on practical fight choreography meant it could have dodged (or, more fittingly, deflected) that critical bullet, had its climactic all-CGI fight scene not devolved into visual incoherence. It's a hoary critique of superhero movies that their computer-generated effects look gleamingly artificial and dull. (As you watch that scene play itself out, try to keep yourself from knowing that all of Wonder Woman's feats of jumping and punching and Magic Lasso-ing are unfolding in a place that smells strongly of hot dogs and cinnamon rolls and orange chicken just try.) As a kind of mission statement, director Patty Jenkins stages the film's first (of, it should be noted, surprisingly few) action set-pieces in that most consumerist, I-Love-The-'80s location possible: A mall. Where Wonder Woman was an origin story set largely amid the soggy trenches and bombed-out European villages of World War I, WW84 relocates Diana (Gal Gadot) to the broad white boulevards of Washington, D.C., in the middle of the Greed Decade. That stark contrast goes beyond their respective visuals - it extends to their very different emotional landscapes and narrative drives. Wonder Woman 1984 premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on December 25.Īs much as 2017's Wonder Woman came steeped in muddy browns and muted grays, every frame of its sequel Wonder Woman 1984 radiates bright, retina-sizzling neons and pastels. She's Running: Diana (Gal Gadot) chases her quarry through the streets of Washington in the sequel Wonder Woman 1984.
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