Image: DC COmics / Warner Bros.
It’s official: Wonder Woman 1984 is saving Christmas.
The long-awaited Wonder Woman sequel, which was delayed from June 5 due to the coronavirus, is finally arriving on HBO Max and in theaters on Dec. 25. Lucky for us, while the film isn’t quite as perfect as the original due to some over-plotting, most critics still enjoyed it.
Picking up during the Cold War era, the film has Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) facing new foes including Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) while reconnecting with her lost love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).
You can read Mashable’s review for the superhero hit right here and check out highlights from other critic reviews below.
Diana remains an inspiring hero
Mashable, Angie Han
Diana (Gal Gadot) may be blessed with super-strength and armed with magical artifacts, but her greatest gift as a hero remains her ability to love and inspire. Such is the power of her compassion that you might be moved to forgiveness while watching it — of yourself, of other people, of the movie’s own flaws. If WW84 can’t quite reach the heights of the first film, it still soars beautifully when it matters most.
IGN, Matt Purslow
But it is Gadot’s emotional performance that cements WW84 as the quintessential Wonder Woman film. Love and compassion are her driving force, layered on top of the morality and duty we’ve seen in characters like Clark Kent and Steve Rogers, and that lends an authenticity to her world-saving antics. That was, of course, the fabric of Jenkins’ previous film, and so Wonder Woman 1984 builds upon that by examining the loneliness Diana endures due to her supernaturally long life. Her solitary existence is painful and is beautifully conveyed by Gadot in both intense moments of tears and fleeting, simpler acts.
Vox, Alex Abad-Santos
She doesn’t have Batman’s dark vengeance, Iron Man’s sardonic edge, or Thor’s party boy vibe, nor does she possess Captain America’s charming self-awareness.
Instead, Amazonian princess Diana Prince (née Diana of Themyscira) is a goddess who saves humanity. She talks about the beauty of the world and learning all of its languages, relishes her sacred duty to protect the innocent and fight for those who cannot fight themselves, and dreams of making the world better, one good deed at a time.
Diana and Steve have amazing chemistry
Mashable, Angie Han
The emotions work even when the calculations behind them don’t quite add up, and nowhere is this truer than in Diana and Steve’s rekindled relationship. Their romance has the proportions of a myth (she’s a goddess in love with a mortal), but it’s grounded in relatable pain (she’s a lonely woman who’s never gotten over her first love). Gadot and Pine smolder with an intensity that you believe could carry on for decades, and the very best of her performance shines through in the scenes when she’s rubbed completely raw.
The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey
Jenkins gives them space to grow together, never prioritising cheap spectacle over the chance to develop these characters. And Gadot and Pine do a fine job of selling their twinkly eyed romance, the unwritten chapters of their relationship hanging between each syllable.
Entertainment Weekly, Mary Sollosi
I won’t betray how Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor, who died in Wonder Woman, returns decades later in 1984 — but thank God he does. His and Diana’s relationship is the beating heart of WW84, not at all tacked on but completely essential, and Pine remains perfect in the part, his confidence and humor making him a match even for his super-girlfriend.
Image: Warner bros. / hbo max
There’s too much going on
USA TODAY, Brian Truitt
The biggest problem with “1984” is there’s just too much of, well, everything. An extended Amazons-centric opening featuring kid Diana is cool but takes too long to get the movie humming, and some iffy visual effects mar the more massive, blockbuster-ready scenes.
Thrillist, Esther Zuckerman
What happens when a movie about ’80s excess gets bogged down in, well, too much excess? The answer can be found in Wonder Woman 1984, a fun, but messy follow-up to the Amazonian superhero’s 2017 re-introduction starring Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins. There’s a lot to love in WW84: bold performances from a delightful cast, fantastic costumes, Jenkins’ fast-paced direction. But it’s in service of a plot that loses sight of what makes the character so great in the first place.
BBC, Nicholas Barber
1980s blockbusters usually wrapped things up in around two hours, whereas WW84 keeps going for 151 minutes – and it feels like it. The prologue shows us Diana as a girl in her idyllic all-female city state. She competes in a spectacular tournament which is essentially the Amazonian answer to a Quidditch final, and while pre-teen viewers will love it, this lengthy segment has almost nothing to do with the rest of the story. The section with Diana and Steve strolling around Washington is in no hurry, either, and the last act gets noisier and more jumbled the further it drags on.
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.
Wonder Woman 1984 hits HBO Max Dec. 25.
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