Of the countless films stuck in a release limbo due to COVID, few are as big as Wonder Woman 1984. The latest installment in a controversial film franchise, audiences had been anticipating this film for months and were excited to see Gal Gadot return to the role, waiting to see the sequel to Wonder Woman, but did it live up to audience expectations?

Not really, The movie currently has a 60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a significant decrease from the original movie, which has a 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but what caused this steep decline?

There is no one cause to explain why the movie wasn’t as successful as its predecessor, but it was a mixture of problems, big and small, which culminated into a sub-par superhero action movie. One of these problems is seen most glaringly throughout the film, the setting. Given the title of the movie, it was expected that some sort of an 80’s retro aesthetic would be prominent throughout the film, but unfortunately, the film drops it almost entirely early on.

Before we are introduced to the setting however, we are given a long intro sequence in which a young Diana competes in an Amazonian sporting event, in which she takes a shortcut, and loses. The opening is supposed to set up the theme that ‘cheating is wrong’, but it runs long and could have been cut.

One of the next big problems is the effects. In several of the film’s action scenes, especially the ones that heavily involve Wonder Woman’s lasso, contain physics so unbelievable that they stretch the suspension of disbelief to a thin wire. Additionally, after Kristen Wigg’s character wishes, which I will get into next, to turn into an `apex predator’ she turns into a cheetah woman that only reminded me of the CATS film adaptation. However, for the better part of the movie, the effects are average and don’t really hinder the movie much.

Above everything else, the biggest problem of the film is the terrible plot surrounding a magical wish-granting rock. The story of the film is set in motion when a magical wishing stone is found by a struggling businessman named Max Lord, played by Pedro Pascal. With the stone in his possession, he wishes to absorb its power and gains the ability to grant wishes to others. Before he obtained the stone however, Diana, not knowing what the stone was, accidentally wished her dead lover Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine, back to life. When she meets him, we find out that he took over the body of a random man, and for some unknown reason, Diana sees him as Steve Trevor, while everyone else sees him as the man whose body he took.

Following this Max Lord uses his powers to expand his business, creating global chaos in the process. Max eventually makes it to a broadcasting station where he is able to put himself on every TV on Earth, telling people to ask for any wish they want, and he grants them. Before she can stop him, Diana fights the aforementioned Cheetah, and after she wins, is able to stop Max Lord and broadcast herself to the world to tell people to renounce their wishes. This causes the worst part of the movie, as we are expected to believe that every single person, no matter how selfless or important their wish was, just decided to take it back. It would have been easier to just get someone to wish for everything to go back to normal, and I feel that something along these lines would be needed if this film was ever recut in some form.

Despite the awful writing he had to work with, I must admit that Pedro Pascal’s performance as he played Max Lord was phenomenal, and I enjoyed every minute of his insane shenanigans, as he slowly became increasingly more insane as the film progressed. His performance might even encourage me to give the movie another watch, but it is still unlikely.

At the end of the day, Wonder Woman 1984 had so much potential, but, due to wasted opportunities, some bad effects, and an awful story, it couldn’t even come close to its predecessor.