Patty Jenkins
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Filmography
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Barbara’s slow transformation to a more confident and unexpectedly powerful woman will get compared to Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns — and certainly Wiig’s endearingly insecure performance owes itself to that performance — but it’s actually closer to a traditional superhero transformation sequence, akin to something out of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man .
If Jenkins’ touchstone has always been Richard Donner’s Superman, an immensely entertaining mall robbery conjures an unashamedly comic-booky kinetic flair akin to Raimi’s Spider-Man films, while a later clash rivals X2 for super-powered, White House-based showdowns.
Wonder Woman 1984 recalls the kind of warm but welcomingly hokey nature of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films when they were at their best.
Three years after the visionary director Patty Jenkins and the perfect-for-the-part Gal Gadot teamed up for the beautifully rendered, surprisingly deep mega-hit “Wonder Woman,” the oft-delayed sequel will be released in U.S. theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25 — and it’s a Christmas gift equal parts thrilling, comedic, romantic and action-packed, with a tone reminiscent of the Richard Donner “Superman” movies and the 2000s “Spider-Man” films.
Scenes like the one in which Diana lassoes lightning bolts to fling herself through the sky exudes the unadulterated joy rarely seen in a superhero flick since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man way back in 2002.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Directed by Sidney J. Furie
influenced Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Visuals Themes
Because sometimes it’s handy to have, if I were to compare 1984 to any other superhero story, it would be a mix of Batman Returns (1992) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987).
She also evokes the sub-par effects and Kumbaya tone of “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.”
Recycling the formula which seemed to work for Gal Gadot’s 2017 introduction to Diana Prince, for all the subtexts and emotional resonance conveyed the first time around, her return is as empty an spectacle as the beaten down baubles of other franchise properties delivered in the decade in which it’s set (the disappointment is something akin to the cut corner of 1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace , a dismissed Sidney J. Furie property)—though this was likely not the aim of its creators, who many have already hailed as the heroic, escapist salve needed at the tail end of one of the planet’s bleakest years in, at least, the digital age.
It's like watching the unfortunate "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" trade-in its action bonafides for a strident ideological dirge.
Superman (1978)
Directed by Richard Donner
influenced Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Wonder Woman (2017)
Visuals Characters
There’s a smart gender-reverse tribute to an iconic scene in the first Christopher Reeve “Superman,” a scene of Wonder Woman breaking free of bondage, while the lasso of truth gets a good workout as a lie detector and a cool weapon.
“Wonder Woman” evokes not only the spirit of Richard Donner’s “Superman,” but also Joe Johnston’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” while still being its own thing.
One of the first things you may notice about “Wonder Woman” is that it doesn’t seem as bleak as previous DC films, even though the bulk of the story takes place during World War I. There’s an overall lightness to the movie, both visually and tonally, that harkens back to Richard Donner’s “Superman,” and in many respects, it feels like Jenkins has taken a page from the Marvel cinematic playbook.
We saw the potential in Batman v Superman, but Wonder Woman confirms it -- this is an example of top-tier actor-to-character merging in the genre, akin to Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Christopher Reeve as Superman, or Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.
She and Jenkins have leaned toward Christopher Reeve’s first “Superman” as a model for how to play the role: strong but innocent, a fish out of water.
The effect is eerily similar to seeing Christopher Reeve in the 1978 “Superman” — Gadot understands that her character is the one unironic figure in a cynical world, and she lets the humor of the situations happen around her rather than catering to it.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Wonder Woman (2017)
Visuals Plot Themes
And one of the best action set pieces is a straight steal from the desert highway chase of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — although the golden metal suit Wonder Woman sports on the poster and in the film is an homage to the sexy sci-fi robot of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.”
Fans of movie history will recall this is a riff on Raiders of the Lost Ark , minus Spielberg’s shrewd editing or Harrison Ford’s everyman antics.
When Wonder Woman and Steve chase down Maxwell in Egypt, how Wonder Woman works her way through the armored convoy is reminiscent of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark —but with superpowers.
The most expensive “Be careful what you wish for” fantasy ever made has nods to runaway greed (avarice) and consumerism, a few jokes about ugly ’80s fashions and trends, a backhanded bitchslap at Ronald Reagan and guns and a lot of story beat tips of the hat to “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
It had much in common with classics like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in its cheer, color and romance.
Where things go from there is a ramshackle meander including something of a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” takedown of a military caravan, a #MeToo kick in which Diana and an enhanced Barbara give the same lech his due, and then there’s Maxwell Lord (“Game of Thrones” standout Pedro Pascal, who actually played in a 2011 “Wonder Woman” TV film that no one saw) as a TV personality and something of a Washington manipulator who gets his hands on the stone and becomes the arch villain.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Directed by Joe Johnston
influenced Wonder Woman (2017)
Visuals Plot
But I’d argue that Wonder Woman’s time period is a pretty clever stealth weapon to explore some of the movies more progressive themes (more on that in a sec), not to mention the fact that it gives the film a retro-cool charge reminiscent of Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger.
“Wonder Woman” evokes not only the spirit of Richard Donner’s “Superman,” but also Joe Johnston’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” while still being its own thing.
The movie is a derivative hash of comic book picture plot points and origin story touchstones — half “Captain America: The First Avenger,” half “Thor.”
And it does so by looking to the past, taking inspiration from the likes of Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger .
There are moments in Wonder Woman that recall Captain America: The First Avenger a little too closely for comfort.
Wonder Woman’s shift to the first World War feels like an attempt to create some distance from the unavoidable Captain America: The First Avenger comparisons evoked by the plunking of another superhero into period battle, finding comic book–worthy foes hiding amidst the historical ones.
The camera loves Gadot, too, in the same way it loves other pretty god-like superheroes, like Chris Hemsworth’s “Thor.”
The movie is a derivative hash of comic book picture plot points and origin story touchstones — half “Captain America: The First Avenger,” half “Thor.”
And it does so by looking to the past, taking inspiration from the likes of Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger .
There’s a shot early in the movie that reads as a deliberate homage to The Little Mermaid — if you were a kid in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, you’ll know it when you see it — and that, along with Marvel’s first Thor film, is perhaps the most direct comparison one can make to what Heinberg and company have created.
There are echoes of what the Marvel operation managed in the similar beats of the original “Captain America” and “Thor.”
Jenkins’ film owes much in concept and style to the likes of Marvel’s first Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.
And while Wonder Woman 1984 ’s message is partially a warning about greed—a suitable theme for a movie set in the Wall Street decade—it also argues that the masses don’t know what’s best for them, and if you give the people what they want, the world will descend into chaos.
Sin embargo, el potencial de este concepto se acaba desperdiciando, salvo en el uso obvio de la filosofía de Gordon Gekko de que "la codicia es algo bueno" - a quien se le escape la referencia, recomiendo el descubrimiento de Wall Street, película de 1987 realizada por Oliver Stone - y el marco geopolítico superficial de la Guerra Fría que parece más interesado en comentar las ansiedades y preocupaciones de la realidad actual que en socavar el contexto de la época.
Batman Returns (1992)
Directed by Tim Burton
influenced Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Themes Characters Plot
Because sometimes it’s handy to have, if I were to compare 1984 to any other superhero story, it would be a mix of Batman Returns (1992) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987).
Barbara’s slow transformation to a more confident and unexpectedly powerful woman will get compared to Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns — and certainly Wiig’s endearingly insecure performance owes itself to that performance — but it’s actually closer to a traditional superhero transformation sequence, akin to something out of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man .
Too much of Wiig’s bumbling-and-mumbling act practically Xeroxes Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman origin from Batman Returns, removing the tribal warrior bite that her archenemy should be.
Loading up on villains can work, of course, but only under specific conditions: Tim Burton's 1992 film Batman Returns famously recruited both Catwoman and the Penguin to great effect — but both of those characters had already established significant cultural footprints: beloved by Nerds, recognizable by Normals.
There’s no Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns-level stuff here, but Cheetah is ferocious in her own way.
First up is Wiig’s Barbara Minerva, a geeky and frazzled archaeologist/amateur cryptozoologist whose journey to becoming the supervillain Cheetah feels an awful lot like the misadventures of Batman Returns’ Selina Kyle/Catwoman.
The resurrection of Chris Pine within the body of another recalls, of course, the Patrick Swayze/Whoopi Goldberg dilemma in Ghost (1990), in which, for audience comfort, we’re invited into the disillusionment of the protagonist for optics.
By taking a page from 1990’s “Ghost,” co-writer/director Patty Jenkins manages to bring Steve back into the narrative.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Directed by Cathy Yan
influenced by Wonder Woman (2017)
Themes
Superhero movies like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel may have already delivered strong feminist messages in their stories, but Birds of Prey allows those themes to burst out with anarchic pop-punk relish.
Wonder Woman broke new ground as the first female-led modern superhero blockbuster, Aquaman dove inward to create an entirely new world, Joker was a filmmaker-driven genre expansion disconnected from the shared continuity.
Unfortunately, his presence brings an attack by German troops, and you can guess how well the spears and arrows of the Amazons stack up against the German’s rifles (this invasion reminds me of the 1985 film Witness, in which the peace of an Amish community is disrupted by worldly troubles decided not of their own making).
If Lord and Minerva are meant to be the dead-eyed artifacts created by the Age of Excess, the capitalist aliens of Carpenter’s They Live , for instance, Jenkins and her scribes fail to make this as blunt as the adolescent minded themes on truth and consequences.
And one of the best action set pieces is a straight steal from the desert highway chase of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — although the golden metal suit Wonder Woman sports on the poster and in the film is an homage to the sexy sci-fi robot of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.”
The Dark Knight (2008)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
influenced Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Wonder Woman (2017)
Themes
Wonder Woman 1984 doesn’t deserve comparisons to The Dark Knight; it deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Spider-Man 3.
En palabras de Gordon en The Dark Knight (escrito por Christopher y Jonathan Nolan), Mujer Maravilla 1984 no es la película que nos merecemos, pero sí la que necesitamos ahora mismo.
The PG-13 action film is the best DC Comics-inspired movie since Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, and one of the few comic book-based films to get the tone just right.
But is it the best D.C. movie since The Dark Knight and worthy of all the giddy pre-release buzz?
“Wonder Woman” isn’t the second coming of “The Dark Knight.”
The film is far from flawless, but Wonder Woman is arguably the best DC comic book film since The Dark Knight.
Not unlike seeing Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman for the first time, the experience of watching Hustlers is akin to having a veil lifted from your eyes.
Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor is resurrected from the dead, much like Warren Beatty in “Heaven Can Wait.”
In 1984, while the likes of Indiana Jones, the Ghostbusters and Gremlins were dominating the box office, one of the few superhero pictures of any note was the ill-fated “Supergirl.”
The scenes with Steve trying to fit into 1984 reminded me of films like Kate & Leopold and Just Visiting, with light-hearted moments that add to the romantic-comedy-drama angle of the film.
En ese sentido no podría ser un esfuerzo más convencional dentro del popular subgénero de los superhéroes; podrá estar inspirada en las historietas originales, pero esto no impide que remita a cintas relativamente recientes como Hellboy (2004), Capitán América: El primer vengador (Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011) e incluso Thor (2011).
Wonder Woman 1984 doesn’t deserve comparisons to The Dark Knight; it deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Spider-Man 3.
The plot is goofy as hell, but the movie knows that and never takes itself so seriously that it enters Spider-Man 3 territory.
The number one lesson from “Spiderman 3” is never have more than two villains in your movie.