[SPOILER - highlight to read]: Superhero movies usually have a lot of world threat, but it also tried to keep distance with real world ppl because superheroes, at least most of them don't fit well with real world. Like the first WW movie was set in WWI but didn't involve too much with the real world politics and the war. The 2nd obviously made a mistake on it.
It tried to set upon so many nations and ppl's greed but in real life it was a HUGE mess which you cannot sum as a whole, nor can it be solved easily. So step into it is a huge NO for the movie. The movie obviously didn't focus too much on all these people, how their lives were, what problem did they encounter, so their wishes look very vague. Not to say they all just make wishes instead of thinking about take away Maxwell to make him serve one person only. Like Piccolo killed Shenglong after his wish. So the whole theme only looks ridiculous and wasn't convincing at showing humanity's darkness or light at all.
The villains were heavily focused, but wasn't executed well.
Maxwell was too cartoonish, yes we got where his idea come from and what his weakness was, but his downfall was not strong enough, he didn't become evil enough to show humans' greed. And I don't see it convincing for him to renounce his wish when he didn't even care about the world burn. Even if he really cared about his son, he had such power and could easily ensure his son's safety, how did he know that his son would be safe if he took it back? We all know who he was based upon, but I won't say they did a good job.
Barbara was a even bigger problem. She received such good characterization in the first half, her corruption made perfect sense yes. But in the later 1/3 of the plot. Her logic and character just crumbled.
WHY did she not only protect Maxwell but also helped him to grant wishes? She wanted to be elite or even NO.1 one, won't let everyone else have their wishes hurt her own? Like if that creep got his wish against her, wouldn't it be bad? Logic just doesn't apply here. She should have grabbed him away, lock him up and make sure other ppl won't be able to use him. So was many other ppl but since she is the main villain that becomes a huge issue.
Her whitewash(is it so?) in the end also made little sense to me. She got saved by Diana earlier and she didn't just thank her but wanted to be powerful, and even beat Diana a lot of times rather than keep peace with her savior. In the end she already became such a powerful predator with most of her humanity has lost, got beaten and saved by Diana would only hurt her pride more, why would she cease fighting at all?
Since both villains' action and logic went unconvincing in the end, the climax seems really weak. The first movie didn't have good action but the logic applies and the character development was there. This one, overall is a huge disappointment to me.
Well aside from the 3rd act with the Cheetah fight being kind the bad the movie itself was alright.
Not on par with Shazam or Joker in terms of DCEU movie rankings IMO but worth a watch if you theaters are still open or if you are gifted a free trial of HBO Max wherever you are.
I feel other actors still have to support some of Gadot's scenes but its not as often as the first movie. The characterization of WW is still spot on.
KMC Community Forums
Dec 25th, 2020 11:15 PM
