電影《神力女超人1984》影評：Truth to be told, it’s an interesting movie, though hardly amazing

By Aaron

It's a pity that there's not even a single movie that I'm content with this year. I'm not sure whether this pandemic has anything to do with it and, if it does, how much it should be responsible. All I know is that nearly all blockbusters that managed to be on the big screen this year turned out to be very, very disappointing. Christopher Nolan's high-profile Tenet borders on a shameful debacle. WW84 is okay though, it still fell short of expectation.

There're just points in the movie where things either don't seem to add up or come off as too artificial. I mean, how the hell did Max Lord get to know so much about this wishing stone - its history, how it works, et cetera, et cetera - when everyone else including our protagonist was kept in the dark? It feels like some backstory to fill the missing links is really lacking here.

And remember that scene of an already slightly debilitated Wonder Woman heroically jumping in front of an imminent high-speed crash to save a bunch of kids playing football on the freeway? It just feels so, so choreographed that it is almost hilarious, like literally, I sneered a little bit in the theater - couldn't help it! Of all places they could use in a shabby country teeming with nothing but open spaces, they settled on playing on the freeway. That's classic.

Similar things can be said about the "flying is easy" part where viewers are forced to sit through what seemed like interminable attempts for Wonder Woman to do photo-ops in the air by having her strike a dazzling array of poses and look just like one of her coworkers in the Justice League.

While Hans Zimmer's score is a plus, the notable fact that he likes to reuse his prior works detracts from its originality. I swear the piece accompanying the scene of Diana tearfully kissing goodbye to Steve sounds just like some kind of variation on the theme of HBO miniseries The Pacific, which, of course, is also composed by Hans Zimmer.

Besides, just look at all this "love is the ultimate panacea in the end to save the day" and "be careful with some genie residing in bottles or lamps who's got the power to fulfill anything you ever dream of only at unexpectedly astronomical expense" clichés, my Lord!

And no cliché could be more pedestrian and formulaic than trying to be educational. DC is making a habit of turning its every superhero franchise work into some kind of fable from which a moral is expected to be drawn by the audience. It went even further this time by dishing it up at the top of the movie, nearing the end of the first section, with the closure echoing what was previously said to young Diana.

By the way, the first section is my favorite of the entire movie, like the showdown between superhero and supervillain is not anywhere near the excitement brought about by the opening Amazonian Olympics.

This is not to say that the moral itself is stupid. On the contrary, it is incredibly intriguing, partly because it's hard to ignore its relevance to our time. How? Well, for starters, you just need to note that ever since Trump took office, the sales of George Orwell classic 1984 on Amazon, the e-commerce platform rather than the mythical tribe of exclusively female warriors, have shot up. With all these telltale symbols lumped together in one movie, what it is getting at cannot be more conspicuous.

And the moral is all about truth, right? Truth is the paramount value in the cinematic universe of Wonder Woman. Let's not forget the weapon she wields to bring her enemies to their knees is a magic rope that compels them to tell truth. Truth is embedded in the original design of this character (whose creator, by the way, was also the one that invented lie detector, think about that), thereby making any film about her a wonderful avenue to allude to and converse with some of the defining features of this era we find ourselves in, an era that bears the name of 'post-truth'.

You see, people wish things could be different. They wish they themselves could be different. And they sometimes are so obsessed with this notion that they finally reached to a point where they refused to accept themselves for who they are and the world for what it is anymore. In short, they shut themselves out of the reality and conjure up an alternative reality filled often with alternative facts - figuratively in the case of real life and literally in the case of the movie.

That basically captures the gist of what Donald Trump has to sell to his camp, that China and Mexico, as opposed to a shifting economic landscape increasingly dominated nowadays by algorithms, should be blamed for a hemorrhage of American jobs, that climate change is nothing but a global hoax cooked by hostile states conspiring to cajole the United States into committing an economic suicide, that an evil and mysterious deep state is pulling the strings and sending the country straight down to hell in a hand basket.

And Trump is neither the only one nor the first one to employ this tactic in history to get elected. Nothing in his playbook is what you can't find in that of Mussolini and Hitler. There's one thing you need to know about these 'strongmen' that they feed on people's fears and wishes. They find a way to thrive on it, just like Max Lord does. And you can't even denounce them for being untruthful, since they, distinct from their established peers, not only make promises but have a good track record of delivering on them as well. Problem is: they just tell half of the story, intentionally leaving out the other half, the more inconvenient half about what they will take away from you in exchange.

That's right. Everything has a price. That's the caveat Diana offered to Barbara when the latter had apparently totally lost herself, and later in the movie, to the whole world when it was in utter chaos. It's reminiscent of something similar from another movie of a completely different genre and style, The Bourne Identity, where an assassin dubbed 'professor' said ominously and somewhat opaquely before he died shortly after to Bourne, the protagonist: "Look at this. Look at what they make you give".

Right! Look at this. Look at where you end up as a result of bargaining with the devil. Look at what a nightmare you got yourself in because you hadn't had the courage to face the truth. Want a way out? Simple! Just reclaim the nerve to be realistic again, because truth is the way out.

Of course, I'd be remiss not to point out that debunking those wish-granting strongmen can by no means be equated with blithely dismissing people's wishes themselves. We have to understand that there's nothing wrong with people wishing the factories they work in didn't have to shut down or the coal power plants they depend on to make a living wouldn't go out of business, just like there's nothing wrong with people wishing for a prettier face and a healthier body, or fame and fortune, or simply having their loved ones back. These are valid wishes and people are entitled to them. It's just it helps to keep in mind the workings of the universe that it always tends to balance things out and keep things going so that there's little benefit in dwelling on the past.

Letting go is never easy. Diana knows it probably better than anyone. But she has also known since she was a child something the supervillains had never really known until they were on the brink of self-destruction, and that is accepting the hard truth is an essential part of growing up and staying true to yourself. Max Lord and Barbara Minerva learned this lesson the hard way. The people of Germany and Japan learned this lesson the hard way. Now it is Americans' turn.

Creators of this movie wish that we wouldn't miss their message. Well, by the magic of Santa Claus, wishes granted and point taken!

Dec 21, 2020