Everyone is annoyed right now (at least - though not only - in America). I was standing in a long line to get groceries today, which shows how inconvenient the world is right now, and there was a guy standing outside with no mask on. And it was making me furious how long he was standing in line at distances six feet apart without putting one on. I don't know this guy, and we can stand six feet apart and if we aren't talking or breathing too hard maybe it's not a risk, but we're all tired and cranky. And it took a lot for me not to scold a guy I don't know who may have lost a mask and needed to buy one. I don't know. But I feel like this whole event makes us all feel like everyone else is an asshole.
For smart people who've spent the last nine months sheltering in place it's because we recognize this could have been over if people weren't being so selfish and short sighted. For less smart people it's because they feel limited by people telling them what to do. Everyone is upset.Gal Gadot first stepped in this with the now infamous "Imagine" video, which saw her and a number of visibly unsure celebrity friends sheltering at home in their lovely houses singing the Lennon song. What was likely the effort of a bunch of theater kids to brighten the mood went over horribly, partly because for a certain section of the population class politics are more important than ever, especially when there is so much income disparity and a bunch of rich doofuses telling the world to cheer up Charlie just doesn't play. But, it was also easy to clown because it was earnest. And earnest requires leaving yourself open to be mocked. The question is how much is that just the world basically listening to the mulletted smoker in the fleece jacket mocking Boy George and Whitney Houston? It is the easiest thing in the world to be cynical, but what and who are we picking on and why?
One of the disappointing side effects of the Trump presidency is then the coarsening of our culture. People who might think of themselves as pacifists - when pressed - might be up for bad things happening to the president and his cronies. It falls somewhere between justice and eyes for eyes. And their intentional disinterest in managing a natural disaster, and the fact that the entire Republican party is now a clown show filled with grievances for nonsense reasons is going to be something that will either be put down, or eventually ruin the country. Yes, 81 Million people voted for one guy. 74 Million voted for the other. DURING THIS. They wanted the guy running things now to run them more.
The unfortunate problem is that releasing WONDER WOMAN 1984 right now is like releasing a feature length version of that Imagine video. Not that it's a shitty DIY bunch of celebs looking like idiots for even trying/caring, but it is a film meant to be a salve against the Trump era. It's an earnest film.
I say this having seen the film a couple of times now. The first time I saw it my reaction was "this is not going to go over well." I couldn't totally articulate why I didn't think it was going to work, but I could tell this was not going to play with some audiences. Maybe because it's bright, maybe because it isn't very Marvel, maybe because the trailer suggested a film more driven by the 1984 setting, which is mostly kept to a clothing montage and opening sequence. I didn't have a bead on it until I watched it again, and then I saw what the film was trying to do.
Wonder Woman never throws a punch. In the entire movie. Once you understand that, the whole film opens up. You may not like it, but there is a design to it.
In the mall fight scene, everything is about defense and keeping the bad guys tied down. Having a fight scene where the main character is acting defensively plays weird. She is never the aggressor, but will leave the bad guys incapacitated. This fight is capped by the most violent Diana moment in the whole thing, where the bad guys are dropped on the roof of a car, but it's played for laughs. And if you have already decided this movie sucks you can be like "that would kill them." And if you say that to me, buddy, have you watched an action movie? When Diana protects Barbara from pushy street guy, we just see that he's been knocked away, not the act itself - we only see that Diana caught her. But when Barbara defends herself it's an act of horror because she is partly the aggressor. In the Middle East chase, Diana rips out a steering wheel and tells the driver the brakes still work. The reason why the car she's under flips is because it's falling apart and she grabs a pipe that causes it to go airborne, and then uses a missile to save children. The White House fight shows Diana at her most aggressive (she kicks), but it's always a defensive maneuver. This then is contrasted when Barbara gains her strength and beats the crap out of the secret service that then Wonder Woman has to also save from Barbara, while also protecting herself from them. I don't know shit about martial arts, but I assume WW's technique is all water based, using people's energies to defeat them etc., but that's not my area of expertise.
In the end Wonder Woman kills no one, not even Barbara. The only purely bad guys are the criminals at the beginning (and maybe the creepy street guy), but the film ends with redemption for everyone else. Because the story is about how cheating is bad. Which is why the film opens with WW losing because she cheated, it's why she can't have Steve, and why we can't trust magical BS artists who say they can give you everything. The film is about the redemptive possibilities of empathy, and the desire to fight bad with good. But not good that's accepts the only response to violence is violence.
And I can see audiences - many people isolating by themselves during the hardest time of the year to be alone, or even people who visit family members or flew and knowingly put themselves in danger because it's been a rough year - watching this movie and being annoyed with it's perkiness. This is a film that is trying to show a world without Trump, that doesn't appeal to base instincts of violence and revenge. And right now that's super easy to say to that "fuck you." Because the difference between "Imagine" and "Many things" is not that far.
DISCLAIMER: I can also tell you things that don't work about this film. I mean, I don't think the Cheetah design works at all, but a dodgy five minute CGI sequence in a superhero movie is not a deal breaker because if it was I could never watch them. Ultimately I think this is a pretty good studio movie.
