by Devan M. Meyer
There’s something about the 80s which audiences today have an insatiable craving for. Stranger Things is one of the most popular shows on TV. We see the announcement of another popular 80s franchise being rebooted every other week. The trends are back. The looks are back. The sounds are back.
Only in a time of stifled creativity and corporate totalitarianism like the 2020s could wistfulness towards an era of similar circumstances take place.
Yet with nostalgia often comes selective memory, and romanticism. We are not fondly remembering the bad things of this era. We do not want to be reminded of Reaganomics, of Cold War tensions, of AIDS, or the Crack Epidemic.
No, we wish to be reminded of the cheesy movies, the ugly clothes, the archaic technology. There is a sense of innocence to nostalgia, and with that comes ignorance.
What does Wonder Woman 1984 have to do with this, beyond the era it takes place in?
Let’s return to that idea of cultural nostalgia, and the products of this phenomenon; movies, in particular. You have films which capitalize on 80s nostalgia for reverent purposes (Super 8, Ready Player One), or perhaps aesthetic purposes (Drive, Mandy), or even subversive purposes (The Cabin in the Woods, The Final Girls.)
Some even use nostalgia as a means to examine its flaws (American Psycho, Donnie Darko). These are films which exploit those hallmarks of nostalgia to reveal the deception behind the facade.
Wonder Woman 1984 is a blockbuster sequel from a major studio, who has sunk millions into its production and subsequent release. A movie this big can’t be provocative, controversial, or critical, lest they risk ostracizing a subsection of its audience who disagrees. Look what happened to The Last Jedi or Blade Runner 2049, movies which were, on the surface, the products of 80s nostalgia, yet touched on more thought-provoking themes which clearly divided its audience.
So, we arrive at Wonder Woman 1984, a film capable of saying something, yet, says nothing at all. It does everything you would expect for a sequel to a massive hit movie. It’s bigger, longer, dumber, louder. Twice as many villains and ten times as much plot.
Now, you might say, “oh, but the first Wonder Woman was a period piece too! What’s wrong with this being one?” To which I say: execution.
Wonder Woman (2017) was a period piece, yes. It was set during the First World War, but that’s about the only thing it shares with the time period. It still has modern aesthetics, modern writing, modern action, modern themes… it’s a modern movie.
Wonder Woman 1984 breaks away from this by attempting to recreate a film from the era in which it takes place. Yes, it looks like the 80s and sounds like the 80s, that’s a given. But the filmmakers have decided not to set a modern movie in the 80s, but make an 80s movie.
Which means: 80s characters, 80s story, 80s themes, 80s stereotypes.
It tries so hard to be an 80s movie while simultaneously poking fun at 80s movies (a montage of Chris Pine trying on all sorts of wacky 80s outfits!), that it devolves into self-parody. You can’t have it both ways. Are you a self-aware comedy or a reverent homage?
It plays out exactly as you think it would, following the 80s movie template beat-by-beat, yet expecting us to laugh alongside it when it screeches to a halt to gawk at breakdancers.
WW84 is a fundamental departure from the universe built in its predecessor, and thus does not feel like a sequel, but something completely different. A parody of 80s genre movies which just so happens to star Wonder Woman.
There is nothing wrong with a sequel diverging from its original. Evil Dead 2 is essentially a parody of the first one (which was an already tongue-in-cheek outing) and The Empire Strikes Back adds a heaping helping of doom and gloom to its sunny, optimistic older brother.
But where those films succeed and this one doesn’t is that they feel like the natural progression of their stories and not a conflicting entity. The Wonder Woman of this film is not the same character as in the first. The rules of this universe are not the same as in the first.
Just because your film is set in the 80s doesn’t mean your characters have to act like they stepped out of a John Hughes picture. The structure and execution is so diametrically opposed to the first movie (right down to the fish out of water roles being reversed) that it does not work as a continuation, but a restart button.
Who’s to blame here? I think it has a lot to do with studio execs voicing complaints from (predominantly male) movie nerds who trashed the first film. But who knows.
This is essentially a live action episode of a children’s cartoon from 1984; something which, in theory, sounds very fun.
My issue is with the lack of hindsight. This is not an 1980s evolved, it is the 1980s as the era saw itself; apathetic, decadent, greedy, self-possessed, willfully ignorant.
If Hollywood would just take a moment to reflect on this period in our history, perhaps they would see it was not as *wonderful* a time as they think.
Grade: D+