I’m not sure what all the debbie downers expected before watching Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman 1984,’ but, quite surprisingly, I thought it was kind of amusing in its own retro ’80s glammy-hammy business. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t much of a fan of the original 2017 film, my expectations were down in the dumps for this one, or maybe it’s just the acceptance that this isn’t anything more than a silly superhero B-movie set to premiere via streaming on Christmas Day. You can do a lot worse when it comes to this type of movie. Maybe I’m overselling it.
The Rotten Tomatoes score for WW84 is, at the moment, a healthy 88%, but these reviews are nowhere near the reception that met Jenkins’ first film. Ditto its middling 67 score on Metacritic. What gives? There’s one noteworthy pan from Vulture‘s Angelica Jade Bastien that might explain the divisiveness this time around. In the review, Bastien basically insinuates that WW84 is just not woke enough for her own tastes. Sure, the, massively overpraised, original installment received a woke pass from most critics who confused representation with actual quality. Bastien seems to be shooting herself in the foot here by acknowledging that that reason is precisely why she liked the first Wonder Woman movie so much more. There just wasn’t enough “wokeness” in WW84.
I will chime in with more thoughts on this one when things settle down here in Daddyville, tomorrow or during the weekend. I didn’t hate “Wonder Woman 1984” and its 150-minute runtime could have easily been trimmed down by about half an hour, but it’s watchable in its own spotilly entertaining way, a more positive outcome than I expected.