Wonder Woman 1984

A Review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman

Let talk Soup, I mean it seriously, soup is a good people shit on but need most in the darkest of times. It isn’t always filling or life changing but it is always around when you need it. Like I don’t wax poetic about chicken noodle from a Campbells soup can but once my knees are weak that Andy Warhol paint of American Nostalgia comes walking over to me with arms of wild embrace. You are now asking why on gods green earth is the man talking about soup? That’s because this movie is Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup. It’s not great, it’s not bad but it’s exactly what I needed this year.

I won’t get into but we are all sharing in a collective trauma. At this same time I am done with superheroes. The Wizard magazine reading kid is done with having my most nerdy fantasies playing out on screen. I would rather watch paint dry but I come back every time. Surprisingly this movie knows that. It doesn’t give me the quips and self-aware humor of the MCU nor it’s not blood dark like anything else they have released. It’s exactly what it says it is. 1980’s Wonder Woman, it feels like Spielberg impersonation in the best ways. Kids having fun in the movie. Bold colors. Characters feeling known but just walking into a scene developed by decades of content watched. Max Lord is Gordon Gecko exactly. Barbara Minerva is filling that Joan Cusak woman out of place role to perfect. The only person who feels out of place is Diana and Steve but that’s too plot heavy to discuss. But those make sense they are people out of time.

The story is a mess but it is also oddly simple. It’s a story about believing on people when they are at their worst. It is a movie where most of the plot isn’t solved by doing the old fashioned punchy-kicky but through talking and learning as a collective. It upends so much while still saying “this shit should be fun!” I think that’s why I love this. It’s fun and dumb. I am tired of being treated like this movies are for adults. They aren’t they are for kids and evil rich man destroys the world and a woman out of time has to stop him is a story a kid would love. A woman who saves kids and remembers what it’s like to be a kid.

So is here is the most important question, is it’s with $15 bucks a month to watch WW84. If you are just gonna watch this and delete the service, eh not really but if you have never watched any of the HBO shows, want access to tons of good ass movies and more then WW84 is a fine cherry on top.

Score 3.5/5

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