We are reintroduced to WW when she swings into a shopping mall in a hyper-glitzed neon pink and blue version of the 1980s. The crazes of the day are apparent -spandex, big scrunchy socks, and fanny packs. Nikes and Casio watches. Moustached men in light blue suits. Television blaring in every shopping window. Advertising in your face at every corner. The world presented is deliberately hyper-realized to bring our attention to this culture of "want" this culture of "more".
For her part, Gal Gadot's Diana works at the Smithsonian, an institution dedicated to the preservation of knowledge, to history, to education. She dresses glamorously in elegant suits rather than tight dresses, and it is clear she carries herself apart from the rest around her. She is joined at the museum by a new colleague Barbara (Kristen Wiig). Wiig is full of nervous energy. A doctor of anthropologic studies and a self-described geek. She is good natured but full of self-doubt. She sees Diana and strives to be that glamorous, that cool, that quietly powerful, without really understanding the origins of Diana's aloofness. It is clear early that Barbara's "want" is a desire easily hijacked by external forces - those who tell her what she wants to hear -that they can grant her wishes - to be different than she is, to be seen and heard, to be powerful and influential.
In parallel we are introduced to Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) a delightfully mad con-man selling oil futures on dry land to unsuspecting consumers. Television is his platform, and he uses his persona win the public over. His commercials make the public them feel special, to create desire. We soon see the cracks in his glossy veneer. He is in desperate financial straits. And struggles with his role as a father. He wonders how he can be a role model to his son if he is not a success.
The plot then revolves around these characters and the influence of a particular mythical stone - rumored to grand wish fulfillment to its possessor. Predictably, the stone arrives in the Smithsonian and quickly changes hands. Chaos begins to ensue, and the consequences are great.
The rest of the film is madness. There is plenty action, and the fish-out-of-water humor from the first film is reversed to clever effect. I won't spoil how Chris Pine is reintroduced into the narrative (it is no secret that he will appear - he is listed second in the opening credits) but suffice to say, the dynamic between him and Gal Gadot is still the strongest and most entertaining aspect of the film - and certainly the emotional core.
WW1984 suffers because it takes too long to make its ultimate point. The action gets too big to fast and everyone - characters, directors, writers, seem to loose control of the thing. From a technical level, the CGI seems a little wonky. There is something unfinished about the action in the film. And the sequences are not the most inspired.
Fans of the first film might be disappointed at the grand and unfocused arc of this one. The first film was lauded for being a tightly scripted war-story with a strong core cast of characters. This one is much less so. Frustratingly, this might actually help drive home the point.
WW1984 tackles the ills of a culture of greed and excess in a clever way, by turning the lens on our common desires for change, our wishes for what someone else has. The film asks: What do you sacrifice when you wish for something different, external to yourself? Where are these desires manufactured? Where is truth actually found? Presenting this hyper-glamourous vision of the 80s, a bunch of villains who capitalize on deception, and culture collectively imprudent and increasingly defenseless against consumerisms flights of fancy, we see a tragic superficiality to our reality. Then strength is found within ourselves, in self-love, not in a desire to possess. And love itself is something you give, something shared; it can never be something you take for your own.
For her part, Gal Gadot's Diana works at the Smithsonian, an institution dedicated to the preservation of knowledge, to history, to education. She dresses glamorously in elegant suits rather than tight dresses, and it is clear she carries herself apart from the rest around her. She is joined at the museum by a new colleague Barbara (Kristen Wiig). Wiig is full of nervous energy. A doctor of anthropologic studies and a self-described geek. She is good natured but full of self-doubt. She sees Diana and strives to be that glamorous, that cool, that quietly powerful, without really understanding the origins of Diana's aloofness. It is clear early that Barbara's "want" is a desire easily hijacked by external forces - those who tell her what she wants to hear -that they can grant her wishes - to be different than she is, to be seen and heard, to be powerful and influential.
In parallel we are introduced to Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) a delightfully mad con-man selling oil futures on dry land to unsuspecting consumers. Television is his platform, and he uses his persona win the public over. His commercials make the public them feel special, to create desire. We soon see the cracks in his glossy veneer. He is in desperate financial straits. And struggles with his role as a father. He wonders how he can be a role model to his son if he is not a success.
The plot then revolves around these characters and the influence of a particular mythical stone - rumored to grand wish fulfillment to its possessor. Predictably, the stone arrives in the Smithsonian and quickly changes hands. Chaos begins to ensue, and the consequences are great.
The rest of the film is madness. There is plenty action, and the fish-out-of-water humor from the first film is reversed to clever effect. I won't spoil how Chris Pine is reintroduced into the narrative (it is no secret that he will appear - he is listed second in the opening credits) but suffice to say, the dynamic between him and Gal Gadot is still the strongest and most entertaining aspect of the film - and certainly the emotional core.
WW1984 suffers because it takes too long to make its ultimate point. The action gets too big to fast and everyone - characters, directors, writers, seem to loose control of the thing. From a technical level, the CGI seems a little wonky. There is something unfinished about the action in the film. And the sequences are not the most inspired.
Fans of the first film might be disappointed at the grand and unfocused arc of this one. The first film was lauded for being a tightly scripted war-story with a strong core cast of characters. This one is much less so. Frustratingly, this might actually help drive home the point.
WW1984 tackles the ills of a culture of greed and excess in a clever way, by turning the lens on our common desires for change, our wishes for what someone else has. The film asks: What do you sacrifice when you wish for something different, external to yourself? Where are these desires manufactured? Where is truth actually found? Presenting this hyper-glamourous vision of the 80s, a bunch of villains who capitalize on deception, and culture collectively imprudent and increasingly defenseless against consumerisms flights of fancy, we see a tragic superficiality to our reality. Then strength is found within ourselves, in self-love, not in a desire to possess. And love itself is something you give, something shared; it can never be something you take for your own.