WW84: The Review

**Before you go any further, please understand THIS REVIEW INCLUDES SPOILERS.** 

The "No Man's Land" scene of Wonder Woman remains one of my favorites in my personal cinematic experience. So for me, the bar was set really high for this sequel, as is the case for most sequels (that's why they exist). When it finally dropped last week, I was hesitant to even sit thru it in fear that I would hate it, and I didn't want to hate it. (Case & point, I binged the Mission Impossible franchise this year intending to hate it, and I loved it even though I wanted to hate it. These situations can backfire quickly for me in my head lol). 

I want to preface the next part of this piece by saying that I am a ride-or-die member of Team MCU in the ravenous MCU vs. DCEU battle royale. I've gone so far as to use the MCU as a basis for a project in grad school where I built an entire training & development curriculum around leadership based on the MCU (which I then used to land my current job). That being said, I don't innately hate all things DCEU simply for being DCEU. Still, for transparency purposes, you should know that I've watched the entirety of the MCU several times over versus the number of times I've given a DCEU a run thru. But I also fervently stand in the irrefutable truth that comparing both franchises does an immeasurable disservice to not just the respective franchises but their fandoms as well. 

All of that so simply say this: I loved WW84. 

Greed is NOT good. 

What I think this movie did well for being a movie in the realm of superheroes is that its villains were regular people who started out with earnest motives that took them on the path to being Mayors of Villain Valley (I just made that up, it's not a real place). We have all been witness to and/or participated in endless arguments about freedoms and rights. Still, they all boil down to straightforward points: you either care about your neighbor or care about yourself, which is a learned behavior, and it turns out also very deadly. There is no more significant threat to humans than what other humans will do in the name of "this matters/I matter more than you." The means to the end matter, and this movie gives you an example of that in 4k. 

Barbara Minerva just wants to be extraordinary & who can't relate to that? Who's to say if any of us had the chance to be mf Wonder Woman, we wouldn't respectfully lose our shit trying to hold on to that? I empathize with her motivation to contain that sense of empowerment. It turns her into a villain the second the wanting to hold on to it becomes destructive. I really hope that Kirsten Wig's portrayal of Cheetah will leverage her more roles with a broader range than just comedy. She was phenomenal in this role. 

And let's not forget our main guy Maxwell Lord (that poor bastard, lol), played by Chilean superstar Pedro Pascal. This guy used the golden era of Wallstreet as a permission slip to be all he can be, and it turned him into a mad scientist on the quest for world domination. But in the end, he chooses his kid over world domination, and how many supernatural villains can say that? (I'm looking at you, Thanos.) For Pedro Pascal, this role was the way to further break into Hollywood's major movie league. 

Cause & effect: be mindful of your actions, or you will be destructive. 

Your thoughts turn into feelings which turn into actions. That's what these "wishes" are: they are physical manifestations of thoughts about that thing that each person thinks will be it for them, and the actions (aka consequences) that follow as a result turn into a shit show. This is a remarkably fitting theme to explore in a year that has brought us a Bingo card of fuckery curveballs. WW84 isn't exactly subtle in showing you how quickly we can crumble when we focus on what the I wants and neverminds the direct effects of that. Not that the reminder was necessary, but it was fun to see it play out just the same. 

You can do everything right & rightfully deserve a happy ending but still not get it. 

Diana & Steve are heroes in their own right who are very much in love, and the fact that they are heroes is why they don't get a happy ending which frankly wtf, right? Let love win, Patty Jenkins! But I really like that it was simple: stay together and watch the world burn to the ground or willfully walk away from a love so deep it was molecular just so that humanity could survive. It reminded me of the tragedy of Buffy & Angel's love story & how those two champions had also earned a handsome reward in the shape of each other and their love, and it just never worked out because the greater good would always pay the price for true love. 

I legitimately don't understand why it is this way. Like shouldn't we all get what we deserve? Shouldn't all "the right" choices lead to the thing? To the handsome reward or the love of your life or peace or whatever it is you desperately need but never say out loud?

Because logic dictates that if you do everything right, for no other reason than just the right thing to do, the end result should be the happy ending that you not only want but justly deserve, no? But that's just not true, and it fucking sucks every time you realize it. 

And let me make it real for a sec: it will never be right that thousands of families have had to say goodbye to their loved ones over fucking Facetime. Not one of those families or patients deserved that. But that's just wtf they got, didn't they? 

Why do people in positions of power get to willfully operate with a deficit level of integrity and get away with it? Wtf is that? Where is the justice there? If you're an asshole, you should immediately receive asshole results. But it never works out that way, it seems. 

Someone make it make fucking sense.

So I stand for Diana & Steve's love story because it's not about love. It's about the that sacrificing isn't just for heroes but for humans too, and it sucks for humans sometimes. And this lesson, while unfair, is necessary for Diana's story. The way Steve loves Diana makes her a better hero because of how they loved each other, which ultimately saves the world this time, and I suspect for many times to come. Steve is every bit as necessary to Diana as is her golden eagle armor. Their goodbye scene was brutal & beautiful to witness, and it gave language to what is equal parts true and torturous: a happy ending is an exception, not the rule. But nevertheless, your sacrifice & pain always have a purpose for the greater good if you use it right. 

The grass is not always greener. 

So often, we think that our happiness is on the other side of our "wishes" without realizing that we already have everything inside of us to be whole. Minerva did not grow into her powers & Diana is groomed into her powers, and consequentially, they both turn out to be completely different people. Minerva could've been entirely in her power if she had just decided to. She had multiple degrees, a fantastic job, already beautiful and capable to rock high heels and bomb dress. Her wish was a permission slip more than anything else. Brute power is not going to put anyone in a good headspace to think clearly. It sounds like bullshit, but I know it to be true: everything that holds the universe together lives inside of you. Just take a look & it's already there. 

Now I've spent enough time in the superhero fandom to understand the reaction is clear and decisive to these movies. I've gathered that there are a lot of people who quite frankly loathe this movie. The truth is that whatever way you feel about this movie is true and valid. If you hated it, then hate it and never watch it again. No harm, no foul. But I'd like to hear reasoning that makes sense, and so far, none of it has. The criticism I've listened to for this film is equal to that of going on a date and coming home saying you hated the person's ears and you're never talking to them again. I need something more profound than "I don't like her hair," and I haven't heard anything that has made me stop and go, "Yeah, okay, I'll give you that one." Sometimes you just have to let a movie be a movie and leave it alone. 

The impact this pandemic will have on the way Hollywood operates will be particularly interesting to follow. WW84 was the first to premiere in the uncharted waters of a post-COVID Hollywood, and it's getting a lot more heat for nuances than it should. It experienced several delays, and it did not have a red carpet premiere or rapid-fire press circuits we're used to as an audience (junkets, Fallon, Kimmel, Ellen, etc.). This is also a blockbuster, and blockbusters are meant for movie theaters, not our living rooms. And let's just face it, collectively, we are not the same movie audience we were in January 2020. There is a before/after to living through a pandemic that will impact (among other things) our movie-watching experience for the foreseeable future. We are all living a version of this pandemic that has been brutal. You don't even have to have personally had COVID to have this pandemic change everything in a matter of months, in some cases weeks. I think it's fair to say that 2020 has managed to steal a lot away from us, and in one of the most superficial ways, our entertainment experience is on that list. And WW84 was the first to explore these uncharted waters. 

Just something to consider.