“Wonder Woman 1984”, a super-heroine to save America from a populist tycoon

Would Wonder Woman be running out of steam, by dint of entangling her lasso with the threads of the “melodrama”? This is the feeling that seizes the viewer after two and a half hours of viewing the new adventures of Diana Prince. We waited for it, we waited for it, and we discovered, finally, Wonder Woman 1984, the new opus by Patty Jenkis (after Wonder woman, 2017), with the same actress in the title role, the sculptural Gal Gadot. Several times postponed due to the health crisis, the Warner Bros. film arrives in France, Wednesday March 31, on the platforms, after its release in the United States on December 25, 2020 – simultaneously on the big screen and on HBO Max .

Read the review: “Wonder Woman”: a touch of sweetness in the superheroic universe

Wonder Woman 1984 presents itself as a sequel – in another era and on another playing field – of Wonder woman. The two films also open in the paradise island where the Amazons train tirelessly in combat, in front of the astonished and envious eyes of little Diana (future Wonder Woman), impatient to grow up and join her sisters. In the previous film, the eruption of an airplane pilot from the First World War, Steve (Chris Pine), handsome and affable like a Ken with his Barbie, teleported the superheroine to the combat zones and the trenches, in a mix of action film and drama – Steve not surviving the adventures.

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Colorful and pop

Wonder Woman 1984 is as colorful and pop as Wonder woman melted into the grayness of the conflict, between dog and wolf. Woman of the 1980s, Diana Prince walks the city of Washington in a business suit and stiletto heels, serving as a researcher and expert on ancient works at the Smithsonian Institution. The theft of an ancient stone with the power to grant wishes will stir up the lust of a poisonous character: Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), a thirsty for greatness television star, whose vulgarity and appearance make one think to a pastiche of Donald Trump, from the time of his real estate conquests. The famous stone is in his hands, better, it melts into him, and Max the megalomaniac always wants more. To each (e), he makes believe that it is enough to formulate a wish to change his life. The American dream is there, regardless of the collateral damage it generates on the planet.

“Wonder Woman 1984” has the effect of a bubble of chewing gum which does not stop swelling, as the scenario thickens.

The precious object also turns the head of Diana’s colleague, Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a very learned teacher but a little godiche. Could the stone transform her into a femme fatale, endowed with superpowers? Diana herself, who dreams only of seeing Steve again, makes the ex-pilot reappear – although a feminist, Wonder Woman still feels the need to shine in a man’s gaze. But is this resurrected love tenable? The two lovebirds owe their reunion only to a stone manipulated by a dangerous populist … Funny and original, in addition to being topical, this parable of America threatened by the excess of power of one man would have could give a quirky tone to the film. But the characters are too caricature and the story gets lost.

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