Wake Up With the Honest Trailer to 'Wonder Woman 84'
With an internet's worth of content available at my literal fingertips, I hate to keep going back to the well on these Honest Trailers. But since there's not a more relevant and talked about movie in the zeitgeist right now than "Wonder Woman 84," this is the most logical choice for a Wake Up.
I kind of feel like everyone had the same reaction to the movie. Minimal spoilers: It starts with an action scene back on Wonder Woman's home island of Themyscira when she's just a young Diana competing in Amazon Ninja Warriors that has you thinking, "OK. This is a cool action sequence to get us going. And going. And going. Going on for way too long to the point you start to think maybe this movie is in trouble. Jump cut to the fight she's stopping a gang of jewel thieves who are basically the Wet Bandits outside of an Orange Julius at a 1980s mall and your concerns are feeling more valid with each passing minute. For some reason they've taken the believable, gritty, real world tone that made the first "Wonder Woman" one of the best superhero movies ever made, and replaced it with a slapstick cartoon. And after that it goes a full hour and six minutes before Gal Gadot gets to put on the costume again. In between is just 1:06 of exposition where the plot loses both its way and the audience.
The first moment I realized for sure "WW84" was a lazy, slapped-together piece of fanfic was the scene where Diana and Kristen Wiig's character start to become friends. They go out for drinks (some Bartles & James wine coolers, so the set design can remind you "Don't forget, we're in the 80s here!!!"). And the scene begins with Diana laughing and telling her new bestie, "Oh my goodness! You're so funny!" Why? What did she say that was so funny? Will we get to hear it? No. Actually writing something amusing for her to say that might be entertaining and establish character would take way too much screenwriting effort. Let's just agree she's a fricking hoot and move on, shall we? If only Pauly Shore had thought of that for his films, he might still have a thriving career.
Anyway, the Honest Trailer people very much nailed this one. The DCCU took the best thing they've got going for them and set it back a generation with a sequel so badly made that not even Gal Gadot could save it. And that takes some doing.
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