Wonder Woman 1984 (WW84) is the highly anticipated sequel to the critical and box office hit, Wonder Woman. The first Wonder Woman film, released in 2017 was seen as a return to form for DC movies. With recent flops like Suicide Squad (2016) and Batman V Superman (2016), Wonder Woman’s charm and lack of obvious plot holes or overly dark writing were a welcome change of pace for DC fans. Naturally, a sequel was made due to the popularity of the original. Although now that it’s out, it seems to be more in line with DC’s long list of flops.

This movie picks up in 1984, as the title suggests putting it roughly 70 years after the original. Diana Prince has become a sort of silent guardian. No one really knows who she is, as shown in the opening sequence in which she stops a robbery and saves a little girl. She gets a job analyzing ancient artifacts in her off time and is well-liked and respected by her colleagues. While on the job, Diana comes across a strange, wish-granting artifact which she unknowingly uses for herself. Meanwhile, a shady businessman by the name of Maxwell Lord knows of the artifact and wants it for himself. While Maxwell is rising to power, another villain is also gaining strength in the background. Also, all the powerful nations of the world are collapsing, Wonder Woman is losing her power, people are revived, new characters are introduced, she gets her iconic invisible jet, etc. This leads well into the first point about this movie.

Wonder Woman 1984 simply has too much content that goes nowhere. Concepts are introduced, then seemingly forgotten about later in the movie. For example, Wonder Woman isn’t known by the public who is eager to find out who she is in the first 10 minutes of the movie, but then that plot point never shows up again. One criminal even calls her Wonder Woman, so did the media identify her or verify she wasn’t a myth? Did they give her this name and find out about her completely off-screen just so the writers could use a single off-handed line that provides nothing to the film as a whole? This is just one minor and spoiler-free example. Things seem to just sort of happening in this movie with no repercussions on the plot or characters that last longer than a few minutes at most.

The disappointment from this film is shared by most viewers. Rotten Tomatoes reviewers came to the general consensus that it’s okay at best, but it isn’t just critics. Farmington residents were also disappointed like Christian Campbell who said “It doesn’t live up to the hype of the original and it doesn’t have the historical backdrop of the original.” or Nora Berkbigler who pointed out that “There was no point in bringing back Chris Pine’s character. It blatantly messed up the entire story.”

Overall, this is a mess of a movie, and I have many issues with it. I just went over the major issues, not even the worst examples like the scene with the jet. It can be fun nonetheless though, just so long as you aren’t expecting it to be as good as the first one.