Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Wonder Woman 1984

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Wonder Woman 1984

    I took my three teenage children tonight and, sadly, it is a truly, truly awful film. Comfortably the worst superhero movie I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot from the genre of distinctly varying quality) and probably the worst film I've seen all year.

    I recall the first movie being decent enough if no classic but this one is a massive drop in standard, made all the worse by it being the sole event movie to look forward to in the latter half of the year.

    Its running time of two and a half hours feels more like four hours plus and I came genuinely close to dropping off around the halfway point.

    The visuals, production design and costumes are shonky (by the end Kristen Wiig's supervillain looks like a refugee from this year's 'Cats' movie), the plot banal and the acting is paper-thin from everyone involved - all even by the standards of campy superhero fare.

    It is a testament to how bad the film is that the 'Imagine' video is now only the second most terrible thing Gal Gadot has done this year.
    Last edited by Ray de Galles; 17-12-2020, 01:05.

    #2
    Why are the recent DC films all so bad? I binned off Aquaman after about 10 minutes, Suicide Squad was a mess, Batman vs Superman and Justice League were boring as fuck. What do Marvel have that they don't?

    Comment


      #3
      The easy answer is Snyder. But it can't just be that.

      I know he's not directed all of them but he's influenced the look and feel a lot.

      Comment


        #4
        I've just looked up what other films I've seen in the "DC Extended Universe" and it's all of them except the first two - Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.

        WW84 is way less enjoyable than even Suicide Squad, Justice League and Aquaman - which were all poor to mediocre movies. Birds of Prey, Shazam! and the first WW are all actually pretty good.

        I've just realised that the Wonder Woman ones are the only ones I've seen in the cinema. All the others have been at home or on planes where one is is more easily pleased by a lower standard of movies.

        Comment


          #5
          The only bit of Aquaman I've seen is 20 minutes with a French dub but it looked terrible. White, glinting highlights to everything. Really bad CGI for the amount of money. And all the sets looked like theatres, although I do a disservice to many great theatrical set designers, flat open areas with dressing to the side and rear.

          Comment


            #6
            Marvel has Kevin Feig, John Favreau and the Russo Brothers. DC hired...other people.

            They’ve hired a lot of people who don’t really understand what made the comics work.

            But Shazam was good. Aquaman was ok if you like that kind of thing, but it should have been a lot better. The first Wonder Woman was good and I still have hopes for this one, but Gadot is just not a good enough actor.

            Birds of Prey was a good effort but could have been better. After the failure of Justice League, they seemed to have given up on doing a “universe” with the films but maybe they can revive it with the Flashpoint film that is still supposedly happening.

            DC/Warner Brothers is better at television than movies. The whole Arrowverse thing has been a big success, for the most part, and Gotham was an ok show. The first season of Titans was ok, but the second season was a bit of a mess. We’ll see if they can get Swamp Thing going again.

            They’ve also had a lot of pretty good animated films and the Harley Quinn show is great. Lego Batman is a success too.

            Of course Watchmen was amazing. That’s a separate universe, but shows what can be done if the right people get to create it.

            I’m optimistic about the new Batman.

            But they really messed up by handing over the keys for the movies to Zach Snyder, who is actually a terrible director with no sense of how real human beings behave. He may be a good guy, but his previous work shows he’s only got that one move - the slow-quick-slow thing he did in 300 and the Watchmen film, neither of which really worked.

            Marvel has had its failures too, although most of those were before Disney took control. They’re now on the third reboot attempt for The Fantastic Four. The last X-Men and New Mutants films were flops, but Fox made those. They haven’t figured out how to do another Hulk movie because Universal still has the rights and won’t do anything with them. The Netlfix shows they made lost steam by the time they made The Defenders. Agents of SHIELD was meh and that Inhumans spinoff they did sucked. The Peggy Carter miniseries was ok.

            They’re going to get a lot more chances. They just announced about 10 new Marvel projects - TV and film on top of about 10 new Star Wars things, mostly TV shows. Disney+ is a massive success and Disney is just dunking on WB right now, as the kids say.
            Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 17-12-2020, 01:08.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
              I took my three teenage children tonight and, sadly, it is a truly, truly awful film. Comfortably the worst superhero movie I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot from the genre of distinctly varying quality) and probably the worst film I've seen all year.
              What did they think?

              Comment


                #8
                They weren't impressed, either. The warmest comment was "OK...I suppose" but they were distinctly underwhelmed.

                Tellingly, the film inspired barely any discussion afterwards. By the time we reached the car park it was forgotten. After any halfway-passable movie we'll still be chatting about it all the way home and beyond.



                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
                  the 'Imagine' video is now only the second most terrible thing Gal Gadot has done this year.
                  Given that she's an enthusiast for racially motivated mass murder, this seems unlikely

                  Comment


                    #10
                    That's a real shame because when the trailer came out last December I was quite excited about it (enough to start a thread https://www.onetouchfootball.com/for...der-woman-1984) but the more recent trailers haven't looked as good.

                    The wider question about why the DC movies aren't as good is an interesting discussion. The only one I've enjoyed enough to watch twice out of the most recent batch is Shazam! and that is by far and away the funniest one. The MCU films that have been most successful are the ones with a good dose of humour in them. Thor Raganarok is the best Thor film, Guardians of the Galaxy became huge and those films are funny, whereas the more earnest films, like the Captain America films, drag on a bit and don't seem to hook in the casual fans on the same way. The DC films all tend to be earnest and humourless.

                    It's also perhaps a case that DC heroes are less interesting; dull even. And that's before you get to the directorial choices and film storylines.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                      They’re going to get a lot more chances. They just announced about 10 new Marvel projects - TV and film on top of about 10 new Star Wars things, mostly TV shows. Disney+ is a massive success and Disney is just dunking on WB right now, as the kids say.
                      The things about geeks and nerds is that they're outside the mainstream.

                      Um.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Is it as simple as humour and decent, consistent special effects?

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Shazam! was brilliant. I enjoyed Aquaman, but how Snyder keeps getting the gigs when it's clear he doesn't understand the DC Universe is beyond me. How anyone could fuck Superman up as badly as he did in Man of Steel beggars belief. I can only assume his favourite comics guys are late era Frank Miller and Rob Liefeld.

                          And now we are to be treated to the profanity and violence filled Snyder Cut of Justice League.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            It's also perhaps a case that DC heroes are less interesting; dull even. And that's before you get to the directorial choices and film storylines.


                            No.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              As a Marvel kid growing up, I have to agree. I always thought DC comics were second rate and dated.

                              To balance that, I loved Suicide Squad and thought Black Panther was one of the dullest things I'd ever seen.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Suicide Squad was terrible. In the end it was a regular soldier blowing himself up that saved the world none of the antics of the Suicide Squad. They introduced a character just to kill him off to show how badass the good guys were and half the Squad did the square root of fuck all, a point hilariously made in the first couple of minutes of the Lego Batman Movie.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

                                  No.
                                  Yes. However much DC fanboys want to blame the director, the bottom line is the characters aren't very interesting either as heroes or alter egos.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    I still want a Booster Gold movie or series, he is a brilliant character.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Shazam! was great, the first WW was not awful, but none of the other DC movies I've watched have been any good, or even memorable enough for me to remember which ones I've actually watched.
                                      Whereas the Marvel ones are, mostly, at least decent.
                                      As far as tv goes, I'm actually enjoying the latest (or at least latest on Netflix) season of Agents of SHIELD quite a lot, having gone in with quite low expectations after the prior few.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        The two companies tend to have years-long hot and cold streaks.

                                        Marvel only had the Incredible Hulk as a watchable live action tv or movie product until Brian Singer's X-Men and Raimi's Spiderman. Their cardboard cutout cartoons in the early 60s were Plan 9 From Outer Space level of hilarious, then the first Spiderman cartoon came out which was brilliant in the late 60s. DC ruled the 80s with Christopher Reeves and then Tim Burton's Batman and the Justice League. Then came the breathtaking Teen Titans then the goofy Teen Titans Go, then came the Nolan Batmen....then came the MCU.

                                        The other problem is DC pretty much only has Superman and Batman, and Batman is the only one with a watchable extended universe. Birds of Prey was almost thiissss cloosssee to being a brilliant film. I am thinking of suing DC for the broken ribs and hernias I got from laughing at the new terrifically inappropriate Harley Quinn cartoon. Arrow works because it's also rooted in reality.

                                        The thing with the Marvel films is they look like they can happen. Marvel at its best has always rooted the stories in reality, and the movies did a very good job with the cinematography and always putting as much wrinkled papers or coffee cups blowing across the screen to make it look as real as possible. There's always real people on the ground.

                                        Zack Shitstain always uses that horrific 300-looking cinematography, and it always looks grey and boring and like a cheap 2002-level Playstation game. He learned all the wrong lessons from Tim Burton and you feel embarrassed sitting and watching them. It always seems that there's NO HUMANS, NO ONE ACTUALLY THERE. I actually get angry thinking about them. Then I think of the giant ant causing the detective step-father to scream as it runs down the stairs after the Thomas the Tank Engine battle in the first Ant-Man and I can't not laugh.

                                        The genius of the MCU was putting a second-rate character as the main cog. Iron Man was a boring and useless character in the comics....then became the centerpiece of the most successful series of all time. DC seemingly has lame characters....wow, a guy who lives in the ocean....wow, a guy who runs fast. DC should look at Teen Titans Robin/Nightwing or Starfire or Cat Woman as the centerpiece....and they better get mo-fuggin Solomon Grundy and the Scarecrow up and running....the scariest mo fos in the Legion of Doom.

                                        As far as Wonder Woman vs Black Widow....one a Greek goddess made from clay who wears bracelets. The other a KGB trained assassin. Guess which one I'd pick to watch.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          I'm on record as not being a fan of comic booky stuff, never got comic books as a kid, either. Of the handful of Marvel films, the various revisitations of Batman, and the even smaller handful of DC films I've seen, probably my favourite has been Birds of Prey. I saw Wonder Woman and Aquaman under weird circumstances: the former after having almost no sleep for 9 days when doing bike race support, and needing to pad time before a flight home, so I was totally spaced out - it wasn't terrible but it felt incredibly formulaic and I couldn't really work out why everyone was so excited; and the latter on the deck of an aircraft carrier in San Diego harbor - and I walked out with half an hour left because I was bored silly and didn't care about the outcome (although it was easily guessable).

                                          I'm pretty sure I'm not the target audience...

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post

                                            Yes. However much DC fanboys want to blame the director, the bottom line is the characters aren't very interesting either as heroes or alter egos.
                                            Not true at all. It depends on the writers.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                              That's a real shame because when the trailer came out last December I was quite excited about it (enough to start a thread https://www.onetouchfootball.com/for...der-woman-1984) but the more recent trailers haven't looked as good.
                                              Sorry, I did think there had been a previous thread and went looking for it but presume the search function is still up the wazoo.

                                              Anyway, I didn't really intend for this to be another wide DC/Marvel/superhero discussion thread as we do seem to have had those many times before and all of the points get rehashed.

                                              Can everyone just see WW84 and they say how awful it is? I acknowledge that's not going to be easy for most of the UK posters with Tier 3 closing cinemas everywhere so perhaps everyone can just cut straight to the chase and say it's awful without having seen it?

                                              I'm actually quite shocked in reading the reviews today that pretty much all of them are positive, if not downright superlative.

                                              They're all wrong, it's really a dreadful dull clunker of a movie.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                It's going to be streaming soon somewhere. There's the HBO deal in America. I'm amazed they've bothered with a cinema release at all.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  It will be on HBO Max on Christmas.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X