After a long wait, “Wonder Woman 1984” was finally released on Christmas of 2020. Due to COVID-19, fans have waited to see this on the big screen since Dec. 2019. For over a year, anticipation for this film increased, which begs the question, did “Wonder Woman 1984” live up to the long-awaited hype? 

    The film starts out strong with a flashback sequence of a young Princess Diana( Lilly Aspell) competing in an Olympic-sort game back on her homeland, Themyscira. When Diana falls off her horse and takes a shortcut, she is expelled from the event for cheating, being taught the lesson that anything worthwhile in life must come honestly, This sequence was very well acted, well-paced, and interesting to say the least. With beautiful scenery and wonderful camera work, this is easily the best part of the movie. 

   We then cut back to the present, which in this case is 1984. Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) works in D.C at the Smithsonian Institution, though she also secretly performs heroic duties as Wonder Woman. When Prince meets a new kind and shy coworker at work named  Barbara Minerva(Kristen Wiig), the two become friends, with Minerva starting to envy Prince. Minerva is very relatable to the awkward, sheepish people out there. Don’t worry, she gets annoying really quickly.

   Around the same time, the FBI tasks the museum to identify artifacts from a robbery Wonder Woman stopped earlier. Both Prince and Minerva find one artifact, known as the “Dreamstone” that has a Latin inscription saying that an individual can hold it and be granted any wish. From this moment forward this movie becomes so predictable. The audience knows that Prince will use the stone to wish for her love interest, Steve Trevor(Chris Pine) to come back from the dead and Minerva will wish to be like Prince, unknowingly receiving Prince’s powers. 

    While all this is happening, Maxwell Lorenzano(Pedro Pascal), also known as Max Lord, who is a failing businessman, visits the Smithsonian museum to seek out a wealthy donor. His mission is to trick Minerva into giving him access to the “Dreamstone” so he can wish to essentially become the stone. Which results in him gaining its wish-granting powers, using it to obtain whatever he wants, so this way he can save his bankrupt oil company. He then steals the stone from Minerva’s office during the Smithsonian gala, which just so happens to be at the same time Prince and a resurrected Trevor reunite, which starts a whole other issue. 

    See, Trevor’s soul is resurrected into someone else’s body, only Prince seeing Trevor’s real face. Which is wrong on so many levels. First off, where did the soul of the body go? What about his life? Do his loved ones report him missing for the rest of the movie? Also, later that night Prince and Trevor get intimate, with a random person’s body. That is messed up on so many levels. 

    Alright. To recap, Lord is basically a genie now, Minerva is becoming prettier, stronger, and more confident and Trevor is now alive in a stranger’s body. Got it? Perfect. So after Prince and Trevor steal a plane from the museum to follow Lord to Africa(where he causes chaos) only to be shot at and return to the U.S anyways(yeah that happens), Prince, Minerva, and Trevor discover the truth behind the “Dreamstone.”

   This stone was created by Dolos, otherwise known as the god of lies. When someone grants a wish upon the stone, the stone takes back what is most important to them. With this information, the audience understands why Prince is getting weaker. In exchange for Trevor, she loses her powers. In Minerva’s case, because she wished to be like Prince, she gained her powers but lost her humanity.  Unless they renounce their wishes or destroy the stone(now Lord) is destroyed, the wishes are final. 

   This is also how Lord is becoming more powerful.  As he grants the wishes of everyone around him, he takes back what they love in return, which somehow benefits him. This plotline does not make sense in the slightest. It makes more questions than it answers. How does someone just become a wishing stone? What if someone wished for the cure to cancer or world peace? It only kind of works for negative wishes and even then it’s very confusing.  

   Moving on, now Lord takes over the U.S President. Yeah, he somehow tricks the President to give him control of the U.S. Top-notch storytelling right there. Anyways, Lord finds plans about a global broadcast system just laying around(what a great idea) that he can use to grant wishes around the world to regain his health and grow his power. Not sure how this works later since it’s been established that Lord needs to touch someone to grant a wish but let’s just roll with it. 

   Prince and Trevor soon find and confront him at the White House, ready to stop the madness that is this movie. Alas, Minera aligned with Lord in order to keep her powers and defeat Prince, due to her losing her powers. This allows Lord to escape on Marine One. In an actually really heartbreaking scene, Trevor convinces Prince to renounce her wish and let him go. They kiss for the final time and as Trevor disappears, Prince’s powers are restored. 

   So the big climax fight scene is coming up, which means it’s time for the custom change and a new power to be unlocked by the hero. This time, Prince wore Amazon armor from the warrior named Asteria and now had the ability to fly/swing on lightning. This makes no sense whatsoever but it looks cool so that’s okay. Anyways, Prince arrives at the satellite, defeats Minerva, who is now a cheetah that looks like she belongs in “Cats” and heads in to stop Lord. 

   She uses her Lasso of Truth to talk to the world through Lord, who is in the satellite, in order to convince the entire world to renounce their wishes. She also convinces Lord to renounce his wish in order to save his son, even though the Lord ignored him for most of the film. This works somehow and life wonderfully returns back to normal. The movie ends with Prince flirting with the man whose body Trevor used earlier(who she again spent a night with without his consent). The last scene reveals that the Amazon warrior, Asteria, is alive, living with the humans. The movie cuts to black and credits are finally rolling. 

    All in all, this movie was not trash. It had its very low and upright confusing moments but there were a lot of solid elements. Despite the writing, the acting was on point and everything was shot well. Logically, the story made no sense at all but once the audience can get past that it’s an okay flick. So if anyone is in the mood for a mindless action movie with a sprinkle of story, go ahead and give it a watch.