Wonder Woman 1984

Did video kill the movie star?

(2020) Superhero (Warner Brothers) Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lilly Aspell, Amr Waked, Kristoffer Palaha, Natasha Rothwell, Ravi Patel, Oliver Cotton, Lucian Perez, Gabriella Wilde, Kelvin Yu, Stuart Milligan, Shane Attwooll, David Al-Fahmi,Kevin Wallace, Wai Wong, Doutzen Kroes . Directed by Patty Jenkins

 

It is somewhat ironic that the first Wonder Woman took place during the waning days of World War I which saw the world (although not depicted in the film) struggling with a global pandemic of the Spanish flu. The sequel has finally made it to theaters (and to streaming platform HBO Max until January 26^th) after being delayed more than a year, argely due to the current global pandemic.

It is 1984 – morning in America, right? – and Diana Prince (Gadot) – the alter ego of Wonder Woman – still mourns the death of her love Steve Trevor (Pine) in an explosion at the conclusion of the Great War. She has managed to lie low for the intervening years, occasionally showing up in costume to foil a mall robbery. She works in the antiquities department of the Smithsonian, along with a new colleague, the confidence-challenged and somewhat clumsy Barbara Minerva (Wiig). The two become friends, and work on identifying a strange artifact – it turns out to be the Dreamstone, a magic relic that grants wishes to the bearer.

Before they realize it though, the two women each make a wish – Minerva to be more like her new friend Diana, and Diana to regain her dead boyfriend. Each woman receives exactly what they wish for – and in Minerva’s case, she also inherits Wonder Woman’s powers. Steve returns, his consciousness inhabiting the body of a handsome man (Palaha). At first, the two are happy.

Television huckster Maxwell Lord (Pascal), a cross between Gordon Gekko, Tony Robbins and Donald Trump, gets wind of the stone and decides to use it to become the dreamstone himself – with the power to grant wishes to whomever touches him. With a steady income of well-wishers, his failing business is turned around and Lord becomes a wealthy man in fact instead of just an illusion.

However, the Dreamstone was actually the creation of the God of Lies and it has a terrible downside – it takes from the user as much as it gives. When the President of the United States (ostemsibly Reagan) wishes for more nukes, the world is brought to the brink of destruction, unless Diana can find a way to stop it.

In many ways, this is a worthy successor to the first Wonder Woman and in others, it is disappointing. Gadot has proven herself perfectly cast as the Amazonian superheroine; beautiful and exotic, graceful in her action sequences, and possessed of a strength and confidence that makes her a tremendous role model for sure, but also not incidentally, a budding A-list movie star. She is quite frankly the reason to see this film; she’s spectacular in the part.

 

Pine is second banana here, and he seems comfortable in the role. He serves mainly as fish-out-of-water comic relief, evincing awe at period technology (the space shuttle, computers and cheese in a can. He kind of gets lost in the shuffle here; Wiig shows some real dramatic skill as Minerva, going from a put-upon, mousy nobody to a self-confident supervillain. The transition is not as jarring as you might think. Pascal as the huckster Maxwell Lord, is surprisingly bland; the part certainly shows some Trumpian overtones, but in the end Lord seems to have more of a heart than Trump, or at least so it seems. Still, I would have expected more spice out of Pascal.

There are some really great moments here – like a flight through fireworks – and some truly head-scratching moments as well. The opening prologue, set when Diana was a girl (Aspell) in a competition with fully grown women, nearly lost me at the get-go, while the shoot-out at the mall really made me wonder if I wasn’t about to watch Jenkins bomb after doing so well with her last film. Not to worry though; it does get much better as it goes along.

There has been a lot of chatter on the Internet about a sex scene with the resurrected Steve Trevor and Diana. As Steve was inhabiting another man’s body, some people complained that this was essentially rape as the man whose body Steve was inhabiting couldn’t give consent. Far be it for me to besmirch sexual assault in any form, but could it be we’re getting oversensitive? I don’t think bodies driven by foreign consciouses are a big problem, or ever likely to be. Can we save our outrage for real world rape culture?

That said, this isn’t the home run that Wonder Woman was, but it’s not a strikeout either. It’s definitely a solid base hit, if we’re going to continue the baseball metaphor. Is it worth going to theaters for? I’m sharply divided on this. I think that it should be seen on the big screen in a big theater, but at the same time I can’t really justify the risk for those who might be concerned about picking up COVID and passing it along to loved ones. I think it was the right call for Warner Brothers to make it available at home and that’s probably where you should see it. However, once you feel comfortable going back to the multiplex, hopefully some theaters will show it as a re-release so we all get a chance to see it as it was meant to be seen.

REASONS TO SEE: Gadot continues her ascent as a major star and Wiig delivers a bang-up performance. Gets better as it goes along.
REASONS TO AVOID: Extremely uneven. Pascal is surprisingly bland.
FAMILY VALUES: There is superhero action/violence as well as a scene of sensuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although Wiig was Jenkins’ first choice to play Barbara Minerva, the role was initially offered to Emma Stone, who declined. Wiig was then offered the role.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Fandango Now, HBO Max
CRITICAL MASS: As of 168/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews. Metacritic: 60/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Green Lantern
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Soul

Lasso

Skyler Cooper gives an electric performance.

(2018) Horror (Epic) Sean Patrick Flanery, Lindsey Morgan, Andrew Jacobs, Benedita Pereira, Karen Grassle, Steven Anthony Jones, Molly Goode, Monique Bricca, Don Demico, Tony Vella, Zoe Swenson Graham, Joe Sobalo Jr., Thomas Cokenias, Travis Andre Ross, Halliny Ferreira, Todd Myers, Skyler Cooper, Seldor Helderman, Michael Gomes, Heather Mignon, Melissa Tracy. Directed by Evan Cecil

 

What could be more all-American than a rodeo? Although the name (and the concept) is derived from the Spanish, we have adopted it and turned it into something that represents what many believe is the epitome of being an American – the cowboy. But like all things American, there is a dark side to it.

An active seniors group is going on an outing to the Hackett Rodeo. Young and perky guide Kit (Morgan) and her less-enthusiastic assistant Simon (Jacobs) bring them to the faux Western town where there are games of chance and of course plenty of shopping. Then there’s the rodeo arena itself, where bronco busters, calf ropers and creepy clowns entertain the crowds.

But as the crowd thins out the senior group dally a bit too long and they witness a grisly murder by a dark cowboy with a barbed whip that rips out the innards of a young woman, and then the carotid artery of their driver. Panicked, Kit escapes with most of her charges but Simon – who had gone back to find a lost hairbrush for imperious Lillian (Grassle) – is left behind to be captured and thrown into a pen with one-armed cowboy Ennis (Flanery), muscle-bound African-American Trish (Cooper) and rodeo queen Rosheen (Mignon).

A mysterious rodeo clown (Gomes) helps them escape from their cell but they discover that Hackett (Cokenias) and his rodeo personnel are all tweaked on horse steroids that are not meant for human consumption and has not only made them muscular but also psychotic. The ‘roid ragers are putting on a show for their own amusement and are taking clues from Grand Guignol and Herschell Gordon Lewis, murdering strays in grisly ways having to do with the rodeo (as in one girl being roped by the feet and arms and being pulled apart by a couple of dark horsemen).

In the meantime, the seniors’ bus has overheated and stalled near the entrance of the ranch. Kit is desperately trying to fix the bus but her charges are decidedly unhelpful. What they don’t know is that they are being stalked by cowboys; while some of them are going to be set aside for the show, some of them won’t make it to the arena. Fame, she is fickle, no?

I actually really like the concept and to be honest, some of the murders are truly clever. If you like gore, you won’t leave this one disappointed. However, there is almost zero character development, Simon is one of the most annoying heroes ever as he botches plan after plan, and the most interesting characters tend to be killed early on. Poor Ennis is the most luckless character you’ll ever see; he survives some horrific injuries but like the Energizer bunny, he keeps on coming back for more. I like the idea that one of the good guys is unkillable instead of the maniac.

Having two separate groups being threatened by the cowboys is unnecessary and causes the movie to run a little longer than it should. Personally, I would have gone with the seniors – that would have made for a much more interesting movie, although Flanery as Ennis gets a gold star for his work. In fact, it is impressive that all the actors buy into the silliness with a straight face. There is some humor here but this is primarily and defiantly a horror film and it doesn’t apologize for being one. It doesn’t pander to horror fans either, which is unusual for a lot of horror films these days.

The last couple of years has seen an influx of really talented directors in the genre and movies that have pushed the envelope of scary. This isn’t necessarily one of those but Cecil shows a great deal of promise and there are a lot of things to like about Lasso. It misses a few too many opportunities to get a rave review, but it takes advantage of enough of them to be recommended.

REASONS TO GO: As far as I know, this is the only slasher film to ever be set at a rodeo.
REASONS TO STAY: Given the opportunity for doing something different, the movie is fairly cliché.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of violence and gore and a fair amount of profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Cecil is a veteran television director making his feature film debut.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, iTunes
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/11/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 71% positive reviews. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Trip With Teacher
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Pledge