There is a distinct shortage of female superheroes, and even fewer movies of them. So when a new female superhero movie comes out, it has high expectations from all its viewers, particularly its female audience. Wonder Woman, released in 2017, was a fairly large success being among the few female superhero movies that didn’t overly sexualize the female characters.
No wonder everyone was excited for the sequel. If Wonder Woman 1984 was as good as the first one, then we were in for a great movie. But many found this wasn’t quite the case.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The opening to the movie answers more questions than the rest of the movie itself answers. We’re left wondering why specifically 1984 was chosen and why, along with lots of questions towards her and her suit. Overall, the first 30 minutes of the movie feel like a very lengthy setup for something else. Very little of the plot seemed exciting or important. The characters we meet seem harsh and stereotypical with very little depth.

Next thing we know, the audience is introduced to a magic wish granting rock. The movie doesn’t bother much to ever explain this, slapping on a label of “god made” roughly towards the end of the movie. For something so important to the whole plot of the movie, it felt like the most pivotal item didn’t even have a legitimate backstory.

Several moments into the movie leave you feeling as if you missed an important detail. Throughout watching the movie, I found myself muttering “how?” repeatedly. But by the end I had settled on the fact that I guess if we have a magic glowing rock, everything else might as well be possible, too.

I am a big believer in the comics, so I was disappointed in both the first and this Wonder Woman. It felt as if they were trying so hard to build this strong female role model, they missed out on the human element of her. Perhaps their point of this one was to humanize her. Instead, what we got was a weak, helpless female who was once again depending on her strong, male love interest to save her. The plot ignored the whole first movie except to paint it as when she found the love of her life and her whole reason to live. It felt as if they reduced her to another lovesick and dependent female superhero.

The year and setting felt random and honestly very two dimensional. It felt as if they only picked that year to get to dress their extras fun. The outfits throughout the movie left me questioning whether they were even 80s clothes and not a mix of 70s-90s clothing.

Many scenes in the movie left you feeling confused as to why that scene was important to the plot. As, during the invisible jet scene, I leaned over to my friend and asked “Can’t Wonder Woman fly?” to which he quickly replied that she couldn’t. To confirm, I did a quick google search which confirmed his answer. But by the end of the movie, both him and google were proved wrong apparently.

Before I had even seen the movie, my coach told me that there was an ungodly amount of slow motion in the movie. He specifically called out one scene where Diana flips her hair in slow motion. When the scene finally came, both my friend and I pointed at each other, recognizing the moment our coach referenced. Just as he had described, the moment felt forced and dumb to watch.

Personally, this movie left me confused and bored. I felt as if they had watered down this amazing character and given her a subpar plot, too. What’s disappointing is the fact they had the perfect actress and a big enough budget to do magic.