Stars: 2.5/5
Once again joined by director Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot is back as the titular Amazonian-Olympian warrior princess in “Wonder Woman 1984.” 

Set nearly seventy years after the events of the first film at the height of the Cold War, it’s 1984 and Diana Prince is living the high life as an art curator for the Smithsonian Institute with her meek co-worker Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) while covertly saving American citizens from danger as the heroic Wonder Woman. Still haunted by the death of her lover Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), she struggles to adjust to a life without the love of her life in it. However, fate finds the duo reunited when they must face off against businessman Maxwell “Max” Lord (Pedro Pascal) and Minerva’s alter ego, Cheetah.
Barring the third act, I absolutely loved the first “Wonder Woman” film. It was a colorfully exciting, wondrous and completely enthralling superhero movie with Gadot cementing herself as the very epitome of the character, therefore I was quite excited to see where Jenkins and Gadot would be taking the character in the future. So, it is with a heavy heart that I must say that “Wonder Woman 1984″ is a bloated, if not ambitious, misfire from Warner Brothers’ DC Extended Universe franchise.
Littered with incoherent plot holes, it’s a movie sequel that tries to be six different movies that unfortunately reads as so painstakingly average and messy despite how visually dazzling and well-acted it is. Practically every plot and character decision feels like a complete missed opportunity that could have been fixed easily with another draft of the script by Jenkins, Geoff Johns and David Callaham. Even the opening scene in Themyscira featuring a young Diana, while exhilarating, added absolutely nothing to the movie since it did not have anything to do with overall story except for giving us a chance to revisit the Amazon warriors. The lengthy two and a half hour runtime also does not do the film any favors as the plot is mostly uneventful until the first hour mark.
There are things that I loved about the movie though, namely the performances from Gadot, Pine, Wiig and Pascal. They were all terrific with Pascal being the true highlight of the film. Clearly having the time of his life in a non-Mandalorian role, Pascal’s hyperactive performance perfectly treaded the line between campiness and believability with him stealing every scene in the process as a larger-than-life 1980’s villain. He fit the film’s Cold War era setting by capturing his chimeric Reagan-era ideals of “you can have it all.”
Speaking of the setting, the reconstruction of 1984 Washington D.C. was an authentic throwback with all the outfits, hair and breakdancing to show for it. The action scenes, especially in the second half of the film, were exuberant and fun to watch too. Additionally, the score by Hans Zimmer, a veteran composer for superhero movies, was great and honestly outshined most of the movie for me.   
Nevertheless, I did enjoy myself watching “Wonder Woman 1984” because it is not an inherently bad movie, just one that is barely good enough. It suffers from poor storytelling and underdeveloped characterization that plagues so many other subpar superhero stories. It’s a fun ride that is saved by the great performances, direction, humor and a great post-credits scene, but it is undeniably hard not to wish for the final product to be anything but disappointing.
Still stoked for “Wonder Woman 3” though.