WW84 (contains spoilers)

After multiple delays due to covid, WW84 has finally come. The movie opens with Diana as a child, competing in a race with the other Amazons. She ends up cheating and is disqualified, being told by Queen Hippolyta and Antiope about the importance of truth and honesty. Fast forward to 1984, where Diana is keeping a low profile and occasionally using her powers to help mankind.

While working as an anthropologist, Diana meets shy, awkward Barbara Minerva  (Kristen Wiig), who's helping the FBI identify some stolen antiques, one of which is a mysterious stone that grants powers. Businessman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) has been seeking this stone, hoping it will grant him wishes and save his failing oil company. Both Diana and Barbara unknowingly use the stone to fulfill their own wishes, Diana wishing for Steve Trevor, her deceased love, and Barbara wishing to be just like Diana, strong and confident. When Maxwell Lord gets his hands on the stone, he begins to grant wishes and becomes more powerful. It turns out that the stone works like the monkey's paw; it will grant you a wish but will take something in return.

The film starts off silly and goofy, with a major plot point (Steve Trevor returning), that comes off completely unbelievable. Diana's love, who's been dead for decades, is suddenly back, and her response is a nonchalant "well I guess I have to figure out how that stone brought my boyfriend back". Pedro Pascal basically comes off like a cartoon. He's supposed to be the main villain, but is more pathetic and erratic than threatening. Kristen Wiig does a much better job, her transition from sympathetic nerd to power hungry villainess Cheetah is much more believable. In fact, I think the story would've been better if it only had Barbara/Cheetah and completely skipped the Maxwell Lord plot. It was too much and kind of all over the place.

The film gets better as it revs up towards it's final confrontation, with Diana realizing that in order to save the world she has to take back her wish and say goodbye to Steve so that she can get her powers back. The emotional goodbye was sweet but would've had a bigger impact if more time had been devoted to building up Diana's loneliness since losing Steve and everyone she loved, instead of wasting time on the silly Maxwell Lord plotline. I like Pedro Pascal, just not in this movie. And more screen time and depth would've really given Kristen Wiig's character a lot more time to shine.

WW84 was a disappointing mess of a film. Not as good as the first, and suffering from an overloaded story that needed to be condensed. There were some enjoyable moments, including Wonder Woman's use of her lasso, scenes of her flying (and yes, she can fly in the comics; it wasn't a contrived idea the writers pulled out of their ass), and her golden armor suit. The final fight with Cheetah should've been longer. However, the few good things can't undo the glaring plot holes and leaps in logic that are too abundant. So many aspects of the story don't make sense once you think about them, it's really bad writing. Gal Gadot does a good job again in the role that fits her like a glove. She just needed better material this time around. The Amazon princess deserved a better sequel.