Women be Equal… in Objectifying Men.

WONDER WOMAN 1984, the sequel to 2017’s lauded, woman-empowering WONDER WOMAN, forgets how to ‘human,’ let alone empower women.

The movie opens on Barbara (Kristen Wiig), a shapely office blonde, who drops to all fours to pick up papers she just fumbled, and three guys walk past her without a second glance – because she wears glasses. The movie is set in 1984 (for the purpose of the outdated communication methods in the climax) – but it’s 2020 out here, and director/co-writer Patty Jenkins (who also directed the previous film, to the fist-up of feminists everywhere) now subjects us to the neanderthal trope of a woman being unattractive by being clumsy and wearing spectacles.

Hey, I’m not sexist – Patty Jenkins is.

The plot itself is a case study on non-human nature, involving an artifact called the Dream Stone that grants wishes. It arrives in a shipment to the Smithsonian, where Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is plying her day job. (During that dropped papers scene, Diana helps Barbara on all fours. No man notices. Not even an Askew Glance (that neckular angle that men have evolved in the arms race to view cameltoe and whale-tail and tight-skirted thigh without being discovered). Is this what “woman-empowerment” has devolved to? Pretending these women are “equal” to men, and therefore undesirable? Whether you subscribe to woman empowerment or are a total misogynist, that doesn’t negate basic human behavior.)

A failed businessman, Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), assumes the “villain” role as he absconds with the Dream Stone, turning himself into a granter of wishes, and grants everyone on Earth their wish. Chaos ensues worldwide. And Wonder Woman beseeches the world to recant their wishes, on the assumption that all were “selfish” (n.b. chicks, cash, and cock size). But did the writers (Geoff Johns, Dave Callaham, and Jenkins) consider wishes like “walking after being crippled,” “curing my baby of cancer,” “surviving a school shooter” or even the generic “world peace”? I’m presuming they did, because they build a negative into the wish – that there is a heavy price to pay for each wish granted. It is presumed everyone in the world is experiencing the maelstrom of disorder from their wishes granted. But I’m sure the cancer patients and cripples and parents of dead kids are mighty fine with a little caca after their lives have been resurrected from the toilet.

The movie digs itself into a pitch black hole. And then it digs deeper: everyone DOES recant. Non-human nature is built into the fabric of WONDER WOMAN 1984, which is defeated by shameful writing and the utter implausibility of this plot whose ramifications are too expansive to deal with in a 90-minute movie.

Diana herself has a morbid wish fulfilled, at the expense of losing her powers gradually – to be with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) again. And we’re meant to ignore that she must be pathologically damaged for pining over a guy she slept with once over 65 years ago. Her wish is granted, with the soul/spirit/essence of Steve Trevor taking over a random stranger’s body. That is: we see the stranger as Chris Pine, but if he looks in a mirror, he’ll see what his original body looks like – another guy. And not an iota of thought is given to this other guy’s existence: Does he not have friends or family that would realize he is missing? What about his bills, his workplace, phone calls, appointments? Does Jenkins think this is how women are empowered? By simply using a rando’s body while his brain and life are put on hold? Truly the most sinister, horrifying, morbid element in this kiddie movie, Kristoffer Polaha plays this unsuspecting male rape victim, and is credited only as “Handsome Man.” In other words, given credit for his looks only. 

Hey, I’m not sexist – the writers are.

Barbara (Wiig) idolizes Diana, desiring to be as womanly and alluring as her. The Dream Stone grants her wish to be “an apex predator” – and turns her into a cheetah (which is technically not an apex predator, and technically not Cheetah’s DC Comics origin either). She doesn’t seem to mind, as she can now walk in high heels (because – woman empowerment), and becomes Max Lord’s bottom bitch for no reason.

Kristen does an excellent job in this silly role. She’s one of my favorite SNL alumni, and kudos to her agent for landing her a tentpole movie. Only problem is: this high-profile feature is excrement, and doesn’t give her any real acting (or comedy) to do.

Well, there’s THIS position… There is no way you can NOT sexualize someone as lubricious as Gadot in that costume. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a eunuch.

If it’s not the stupid plot, it’s the lame effects: Wonder Woman runs in the street at super-speed – and it looks like she’s on a moving sidewalk being pulled along, because (as Gal describes it) she was being pulled along “as fast as Usain Bolt”… All these years later and we’re still faking Jeff-East-Running-Alongside-Train? Wonder Woman and Steve steal a jet, and she makes it invisible through, uh… magic who cares fuck you.

Speaking of magic, if all the other Dream Stone wishes are being magicked out of thin air, why can’t Steve Trevor be magicked in the same way? Why did they overrun Handsome Man’s unsuspecting body to assuage Diana’s obsessive ramrod fixation? And no, it’s not unhealthy obsession that she lusts after a guy she dicked down 65 years ago; it’s “true love” because she’s a woman, see.

Diana dons angelic armor for the final battle with Cheetah; armor that apparently belonged to a great Amazonian warrior, Asteria, who went MIA. But it’s simply for trailers and posters, as Diana shucks it off after Cheetah tears it to shreds… supposedly mythical armor is pretty useless if it can’t even survive an attack by the Target Lady. Besides, it was spending too much time covering Wonder’s regular bondage costume that teases with sexy combat positions just a peek-a-boo away from BAGINA.

Hey, I’m not sexist – the fight choreographer is.

Funny how they make everyone talk in Gal Gadot’s Austro-Czecho-Germano-Israeli accent. It could be seen as the Amazons being exotic and who knows what they sound like – but it’s more a case of, “What?! She can’t do an American accent? Jesus, we have to reverse-engineer everyone else around her to sound like that…” (Wouldn’t you have killed to have been in that producer meeting?)

Final scene cameos the original Wonder Woman – Lynda Carter as Asteria (the armor owner), still radiant, drop-dead stunning and salaciously irresistible–

Hey, I’m not sexist – Wonder Woman is.

END

Superman in a bra.

Thighs shaved smoother than a cucumber. Cupid-bow lips. Armored breast. Screenings for Lesbians Only. The first ever feature film for the DC superhero WONDER WOMAN has already caused its fare share of controversy and orgasm.

It seems as if critics are only lauding this Patty Jenkins-directed film for fear of retribution from the female gender, and as contriteness for heaping such derision on the female-driven GHOSTBUSTERS last year. The first female superhero movie? Oh, it’s the best movie ever made! Best superhero movie by a mile! Totally “gets it” for women!

You lost me at lesbian screenings.

WONDER WOMAN is undoubtedly a thrilling tale, with excellent production values, an origin story not done to death like Batman’s or Spider-Man’s, its star an alluring neophyte in man-dribbling mini-skirt, with a scarring orchestral theme that halts armies and storms ramparts! (The bed of Hans Zimmer drums, the wailing banshee tritones of Junkie XL; insistent, vertiginous, clawing into your cerebral cortex!) Yet the movie fails to jolt into the upper climes of superherodom. Maybe it does for feminists and those boyfriends who need to gain access to feminist panties, however as part of the DC Extended Universe, WONDER WOMAN fails to grapple with the darkness and depth of MAN OF STEEL or BATMAN V SUPERMAN. It gets very close though. As close as a shaved thigh on a pouty face.

From Here To Themiscyra.

Wonder Woman’s origin story (created by William Moulton Marston in 1941) was originally set during World War II. WONDER WOMAN (written by Alan Heinberg, Zack Snyder and Jason Fuchs) is set in WWI, because the filmmakers wanted “social innocence” (read as women being treated like second-class citizens without repercussions: they wanted Diana to be out of place when brought to 1900’s London, yet unable to change the social climate).

Other than the era change, Wonder Woman comes to us as we remember her: embarrassingly patriotic red-white-and-blue garb, shield, sword (called the “god-killer”), Lasso of Hestia (aka Lasso of Truth), and tiny black nun’s panties covered with armored platelet and a gold-rimmed corset that makes us yearn after that and those.

A brief prologue shows Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in modern times, looking at a vintage 1918 photograph of herself (see SIDEBAR). Then we are flashed back to a sun-soaked paradise island – Themiscyra, where we find a city of warriors bred for battle, ruling their land with wisdom and strength, running a society with ingenuity and intelligence, with no need for the opposite gender except for procreation; in other words, a society of men— Uh oh! Now I’m in trouble. No, not men – Amazons! Wild warrior women!

We meet young Diana (remarkable Lilly Aspell), mimicking General Antiope (statuesque Robin Wright, bringing her sensual venom from HOUSE OF CARDS and expressing it in real battle). Connie Nielsen is Diana’s doting mother, Queen Hippolyta, describing Diana’s birth (molded from clay by Zeus). And what is that accent they’re all using? Are they reverse-engineering Gal Gadot’s exotic Israeli accent into the full Amazon cast?

Baby Diana is trained by Antiope until she blossoms into Gal Gadot, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap— well, you know. And that is the movie’s contradictory misstep: Diana and the Amazons are bred for one thing – battle against Ares (Hippolyta warned: “Ares the god of war turned men against one another and war ravaged the earth”) – yet when grown Diana wants to lend her fighting bosom to the World War because she suspects Ares’ meddling, the first thing the Amazons do is disown her, telling her The legends are not true!… See? Now do you get the reason why this movie is not credible? And you thought I was just being sexist.

Y’know, if you try to find a picture of Wonder Woman that ISN’T prurient – you will fail.

When American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash-lands on Themiscyra and inadvertently leads Germans to its shores, the warrior women launch into sexy battle and win. (Fist-up for woman empowerment and all that.) Sexy and kiddie-clean, as there is no blood whatsoever in this balletic battle utilizing blades, arrows and guns. Antiope even takes a bloodless bullet for Diana. (But I thought their armor was bullet-proof, or is that just Diana’s gauntlets? Even so, the pellets from these old-fashioned guns couldn’t have done that much damage – why not rush Antiope to that pool of rejuvenation that they put Steve in? Movies, huh?)

Steve, an American spy, importunes the Amazons to join him in the war effort, telling them of the villainous General Ludendorff (Danny Huston), and his chemical warfare mistress, Dr. Poison (Elena Anaya), from whom he stole deadly information. But the Amazons do not believe, as Diana does, that Ares is behind the “war to end all wars,” so decide to bravely sit out this world conflict. Diana is forced to steal the shield, lasso and sword, and sail off as a runaway with Steve. She’s painted as a rebel because Wonder Woman, like Superman, threatens to become a boring character if she is all-pure. Hippolyta laments to Diana, “If you choose to leave, you may never return.” (Uh, one good reason, please?)

Yet… as Hippolyta watches her daughter disappear over the waves, she proclaims, “The more she knows, the sooner he will find her,” meaning she ADMITS Ares is behind the war, also revealing she has not told Diana something important. We would learn later it is Diana herself who is the “god-killer.” And there was no reason to keep that secret. And if Hippolyta is so dubious of Diana’s battle prowess, why not just mobilize her army of lazy Amazon bitches and join the war effort?

You lost me at star-spangled underpants.

Back in smog-choked 1918 London, it’s fish-out-of-water time as Diana tries to fit in with a misogynistic society where women are subservient, like Steve’s assistant Etta (Lucy Davis, still a secretary; in THE OFFICE, sensual; here, frumpy). Diana enters the all-male House of Lords, led by David Thewlis. She berates the generals, not understanding how they can knowingly “sacrifice all those lives.” Answer: Because all men are pigs, right girls?!

Superhero sugar high.

Movie is funny in innocuous ways: Diana tells Steve, “Only an Amazon can defeat Ares.” He replies, “We need to get to London and try to find the men who can.” She retorts, “I’M the men who can!” It’s cute because it’s true.

Homage to SUPERMAN: they put glasses on Diana as a disguise; she stops a bullet in an alley mugging; she gads about in a big cloak to cover her armor/nakedness.

The old trope of Steve recruiting his men while they’re engaged in bar fights – Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner and Eugene Brave Rock (very cool to include a Native American on this ragtag team); the three men who would be in that amazing cross-generational photo.

Quite childishly romantic, as Steve and Diana spend but one night together in a hotel room, before they will be separated by tragedy; although I’m thinking of the logistics on how a super-powered being can ever be satisfied by a mortal, even if he is the Captain of the Enterprise. Superman’s Kryptonian thrusts are two decades away.

At the front lines, the team is pinned down in a trench. Steve yells, “This is No Man’s Land; no MAN can cross it!” Oh, here we go – fist-up for substituting the word ‘woman.’ Thankfully, they don’t, and instead go for the jugular with the Wonder Woman reveal.

Slow motion, Diana climbs out of the trench, shrugs off her cloak, revealing the battle armor that wouldn’t cover a midget (prompting all male genitals to slowly “unfold”), and steps into the mud of No Man’s Land. Somehow, she has her sword and shield, boots, gauntlets, thighs, waterfall raven tresses babbling over naked shoulders, flap of groin-skirt sensually teasing, you could almost taste the pearbottom… In this hero shot, violins chug, smoke drifts, she looks like Linda Carter – the movie has won! –

Bullets scream at her, they ping off her gauntlets and shield, and then, the chugging is joined by those temple-throbbing drums – and the jarring tritone theme unleashes its fury. We almost wet our groin-platelets in ecstasy.

She takes on armed Germans, clobbering, swishing, deflecting bullets; flawless skin, vermilion lips, corded thighs, nun’s panties, raven locks… I don’t know where you’re looking, but my cinema experience is a wonder…

DC movies have started to follow a dangerous pattern (no, not just the new longer motion logo, which Cinema Sins will go ape over): their third acts devolve into eye-shattering CGI battles that would do TRANSFORMERS films proud. It was great in MAN OF STEEL, as Superman used his powers of flight and strength in ways that had never been visualized before; the city-sized explosions became a little tiresome in BATMAN V SUPERMAN, but here… they’ve bought the farm on predictable and overblown with Wonder Woman versus Ares, just clobbering the shit out of the greenscreen.

The villain gets to soliloquy on “wiping out Mankind and bringing paradise to the Earth,” which I can’t find fault with. She actually answers, “I can never be a part of that!” Give me one good reason why you don’t want paradise on Earth again? But the audience is not given the chance to ponder contradictions, as now Wondy is fighting a gigantic Viking special effect with a man-skort. How can she possibly win against this obviously stronger god? Answer: more special effects.

The big questions in play in WONDER WOMAN (Is Mankind worth saving? Will love save the world? Is every human both darkness and light?) become totally irrelevant due to the movie’s own plot. You see, after Wonder Woman defeats the Visual Effects Department (aka Ares), all the Germans break out of a trance and become good again. They’re telling us that all that “morality” and “love of war” has nothing to do with human free will, but possession by Ares! Which means that questioning Mankind’s dual nature, and capability for love, and busting out the painfully trite “They are warlike – yet noble” speech can all be boiled down to, “Just keep Ares away from them, they’ll be okay.”

“It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.” Diana’s opening and closing maudlin narration makes us cringe, as the filmmakers try to tie Wonder Woman to William Marston’s original ethos – that she would combat hate (i.e. war) with love (i.e. breasts). “I have seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they’ll go to for love.” My gorge is rising, as well as… “Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give… for the world I know can be. This is my mission. Now. For ever.”

And a cheese factory exploded in London.

END