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ivyficSo WW84 was...not good.
I enjoyed the first WW--I'd give it a solid B. The third act dragged a lot, and it introduced a lot of ideas that I think could have been better served, but overall, I enjoyed it.
This one? ...
The good:
+ Pretty much everything with Chris Pine. Taking him to the Air and Space museum. "I forgot to tell you about radar." Getting a Diana dressing *him* up montage. All that fan service, I enjoyed very much.
+ I've not seen this particular take on wishing for more wishes before. That was cool. Especially since social norms mean people tend to agree with you, especially if you're being kind of creepy and grabbing onto them, so the way Max Lord manipulates people into making wishes is kind of excellent.
The bad:
- Kristen Wiig's entire storyline. I'm not a Kristen Wiig fan in general, but that's more for her comedy, which was not on display here. She was basically doing the Syndrome storyline, except--Diana was never shitty to her. Aloof, sure, but they're pretty much strangers. And she did take her out to dinner, at which Barbara asked her incredibly invasive questions. (I'm sorry, but I do not start friendships by asking people if they've ever been in love. WTF.) So to then turn it into a it's my turn now vendetta was just totally unmotivated. Also--can't women be friends? Or are you telling me it's not possible for a woman to be friends with someone as beautiful as Gal Gadot because of course she'd be too jealous? And can't frumpy unpopular girls not be villains? And I'm so tired of films taking a conventionally attractive, very thin woman and trying to convince me she's a frumpy, unpopular girl. This whole story. Just tired.
- Why was this set in 1984? There's no plot reason for it to be there, and it didn't seem all that interested in hitting eighties nostalgia buttons except for a few digs at the fashion. And even that--look, when Kristen Wiig does her transformation, her hair is not big enough. Diana is wearing things that are compatible with eighties, but also would look perfectly normal now. If you want me to believe this is 1984, hit me with some Cybil Shepherd glam. That's the type of eighties fashion supermodel-looking working girls would be wearing.
The opening of the movie had a couple of nods (I think I saw half a B. Dalton Booksellers sign), but then the rest of the movie seemed to forget about it. At one point, when a newscaster said the US government supported the Egyptian government, I said to my girlfriend, well, that makes sense, this is only 5 years after the Iranian hostage crisis and the US has always propped up Egypt as a bastion against Iran. My gf looked at me and said--Ivy, the writers are not paying that much attention.
- The soundtrack. You set this in 1984, and used ZERO music from the period? Why? It was 100% score, and while the score had a few nods to the time period, it didn't lean that way very hard. Instead it was just Hans Zimmer recycling himself. There were a couple of quotations from the Gladiator soundtrack in there, and every time that happened, it threw me right out of the moment. Here are the top 5 songs from 1984: When Doves Cry, Prince; What's Love Got to Do with It, Tina Turner; Say Say Say, Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson; Footloose, Kenny Loggins; Against All Odds, Phil Collins. You're telling me you couldn't license any of that? Not even something much further down, like Got a Hold on Me by Christine McVie? I go back to my previous point--WHY IS THIS SET IN 1984?
- The effects were. Not good. There were a lot of shots that just looked kind of garbage. There were also weird discontinuities that bothered me. Like, you'd see Diana throw her lasso, and then in the next shot it's on her belt again. At one point she loses it mid-swing. Next shot, on her belt again. Maybe this is a magical property of the lasso, but if so, I would appreciate some shot showing that it comes back by itself. Instead, everything about her using her lasso looks kind of gumby.
- The plot. The whole plot. Made no sense. They did not establish the rules for how the dream stone worked before Max Lord took its power. So--even though the dream stone is supposed to take what you value most in exchange for your desire, he can choose what it takes? Why? Why is it making him sick? Why can he heal himself with it? If Barbara already wished, and Max's dodge around wishing for more wishes is just about taking what other people have, how the hell does he then use that to turn her into a Cheetah? Why does random rioting break out? I know it's supposed to be "fall of civilisation," but in a two and a half hour movie, they didn't bother to actually connect the bad side effects to the wishes--like, you could have had the wish for never hitting traffic cause traffic accidents and gridlock, but they didn't bother to show that.
And the ending. Oh, the ending. I know we're supposed to see that what Max Lord is losing is what he values most--his son--but they did not establish that he actually cared, really. At the open, he forgot it was his weekend. Throughout the film, we see him forget again, and then ditch his son at his office. They could have had a whole thing where he was doing this so as not to be humiliated in his son's eyes, but they never bothered to develop that.
So when Diana says at the end, "I'm not talking to you"--I was like! Oh! She's talking to his son! Cause his son wished for his father to be great! So if his son renounces the wish, that will take him out! Except, no. The kid's wish never comes back again, and there's nothing about what the kid lost by wishing. She instead somehow convinces the whole planet to renounce their wishes. The wishes that we see are dumb, regrettable ones. But I'm sure some people wished for, like, their husband to stop beating them, or a home to raise their kids, or for their cancer to be cured. I'm not buying all these people renouncing their wishes. And then--what? Does time rewind? Do people forget this whole thing happened? Why did the nuke in mid-air disintegrate? NO FUCKING SENSE. ANY OF IT.
So, in conclusion, I enjoyed some of the fan service, but that was kind of all. Glad I had a few other things I wanted to watch on HBO Max, cause this was not worth the subscription.
I enjoyed the first WW--I'd give it a solid B. The third act dragged a lot, and it introduced a lot of ideas that I think could have been better served, but overall, I enjoyed it.
This one? ...
The good:
+ Pretty much everything with Chris Pine. Taking him to the Air and Space museum. "I forgot to tell you about radar." Getting a Diana dressing *him* up montage. All that fan service, I enjoyed very much.
+ I've not seen this particular take on wishing for more wishes before. That was cool. Especially since social norms mean people tend to agree with you, especially if you're being kind of creepy and grabbing onto them, so the way Max Lord manipulates people into making wishes is kind of excellent.
The bad:
- Kristen Wiig's entire storyline. I'm not a Kristen Wiig fan in general, but that's more for her comedy, which was not on display here. She was basically doing the Syndrome storyline, except--Diana was never shitty to her. Aloof, sure, but they're pretty much strangers. And she did take her out to dinner, at which Barbara asked her incredibly invasive questions. (I'm sorry, but I do not start friendships by asking people if they've ever been in love. WTF.) So to then turn it into a it's my turn now vendetta was just totally unmotivated. Also--can't women be friends? Or are you telling me it's not possible for a woman to be friends with someone as beautiful as Gal Gadot because of course she'd be too jealous? And can't frumpy unpopular girls not be villains? And I'm so tired of films taking a conventionally attractive, very thin woman and trying to convince me she's a frumpy, unpopular girl. This whole story. Just tired.
- Why was this set in 1984? There's no plot reason for it to be there, and it didn't seem all that interested in hitting eighties nostalgia buttons except for a few digs at the fashion. And even that--look, when Kristen Wiig does her transformation, her hair is not big enough. Diana is wearing things that are compatible with eighties, but also would look perfectly normal now. If you want me to believe this is 1984, hit me with some Cybil Shepherd glam. That's the type of eighties fashion supermodel-looking working girls would be wearing.
The opening of the movie had a couple of nods (I think I saw half a B. Dalton Booksellers sign), but then the rest of the movie seemed to forget about it. At one point, when a newscaster said the US government supported the Egyptian government, I said to my girlfriend, well, that makes sense, this is only 5 years after the Iranian hostage crisis and the US has always propped up Egypt as a bastion against Iran. My gf looked at me and said--Ivy, the writers are not paying that much attention.
- The soundtrack. You set this in 1984, and used ZERO music from the period? Why? It was 100% score, and while the score had a few nods to the time period, it didn't lean that way very hard. Instead it was just Hans Zimmer recycling himself. There were a couple of quotations from the Gladiator soundtrack in there, and every time that happened, it threw me right out of the moment. Here are the top 5 songs from 1984: When Doves Cry, Prince; What's Love Got to Do with It, Tina Turner; Say Say Say, Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson; Footloose, Kenny Loggins; Against All Odds, Phil Collins. You're telling me you couldn't license any of that? Not even something much further down, like Got a Hold on Me by Christine McVie? I go back to my previous point--WHY IS THIS SET IN 1984?
- The effects were. Not good. There were a lot of shots that just looked kind of garbage. There were also weird discontinuities that bothered me. Like, you'd see Diana throw her lasso, and then in the next shot it's on her belt again. At one point she loses it mid-swing. Next shot, on her belt again. Maybe this is a magical property of the lasso, but if so, I would appreciate some shot showing that it comes back by itself. Instead, everything about her using her lasso looks kind of gumby.
- The plot. The whole plot. Made no sense. They did not establish the rules for how the dream stone worked before Max Lord took its power. So--even though the dream stone is supposed to take what you value most in exchange for your desire, he can choose what it takes? Why? Why is it making him sick? Why can he heal himself with it? If Barbara already wished, and Max's dodge around wishing for more wishes is just about taking what other people have, how the hell does he then use that to turn her into a Cheetah? Why does random rioting break out? I know it's supposed to be "fall of civilisation," but in a two and a half hour movie, they didn't bother to actually connect the bad side effects to the wishes--like, you could have had the wish for never hitting traffic cause traffic accidents and gridlock, but they didn't bother to show that.
And the ending. Oh, the ending. I know we're supposed to see that what Max Lord is losing is what he values most--his son--but they did not establish that he actually cared, really. At the open, he forgot it was his weekend. Throughout the film, we see him forget again, and then ditch his son at his office. They could have had a whole thing where he was doing this so as not to be humiliated in his son's eyes, but they never bothered to develop that.
So when Diana says at the end, "I'm not talking to you"--I was like! Oh! She's talking to his son! Cause his son wished for his father to be great! So if his son renounces the wish, that will take him out! Except, no. The kid's wish never comes back again, and there's nothing about what the kid lost by wishing. She instead somehow convinces the whole planet to renounce their wishes. The wishes that we see are dumb, regrettable ones. But I'm sure some people wished for, like, their husband to stop beating them, or a home to raise their kids, or for their cancer to be cured. I'm not buying all these people renouncing their wishes. And then--what? Does time rewind? Do people forget this whole thing happened? Why did the nuke in mid-air disintegrate? NO FUCKING SENSE. ANY OF IT.
So, in conclusion, I enjoyed some of the fan service, but that was kind of all. Glad I had a few other things I wanted to watch on HBO Max, cause this was not worth the subscription.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 10:08 pm (UTC)It would have been so much more cheesy and fun if they'd tried to make it really look like the 80s.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-27 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-27 03:39 am (UTC)And the entire sequence in the Middle East was hella racist (I won't even say Egypt, because it wasn't).