Wonder Woman 1984 has finally opened in theaters and is also streaming on HBO Max. The film is spectacular in its cinematography and its storytelling. But we feel Wonder Woman 1984 should have been a three-hour film. The film which has a runtime of 2hours and 35minutes could have benefited from an extra half hour. The film boasts an all-star cast with Gal Gadot, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Pine and all four cast members deserved a few more minutes of screen time.
*This article contains spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984.
Barbara Minerva & Maxwell Lord
In DC Comic lore, Barbara Minerva (portrayed by Kristen Wiig) was an archeologist and close friend of Wonder Woman before she transforms into Cheetah. In Wonder Woman 1984 Diana Prince meets Barbara while working, and they quickly become friends. This friendship building could have had a few more scenes. A few more interactions between them may have been beneficial for audiences to see. In the film, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) initially befriends Barbara to get more information on the case Barbara is working on for the FBI. But after a dinner outing, she begins to enjoy Barbara’s humor and warmth. It would have been nice to see Diana and Barbara develop that friendship a little bit more. In the film, Diana mainly seems interested in Barabra because of the Dreamstone that is in her possession.
When we first meet Barbara she is socially awkward, dressed in slouchy and less than fashionable ensembles. After a wish to become more like Diana, she starts slowly evolves from a character who is Diana Prince’s friend to Cheetah, who is now her rival. The evolution comes with some fantastic wardrobe upgrades that make her more fun, fashionable, and confident. Having at least one more scene or a specific moment where Barbara realizes that her wish has come true may have helped the storytelling. Maybe having a moment where she was so excited about discovering that her wish came true would have worked well with her later realizing that her wish was cursed.
Cheetah is such a fantastic character idea, that it would have been great to see more of it. Pedro Pascal who plays villain Maxwell Lord in the film gets plenty of screen time in the film. It’s well deserved and it makes sense to have him cast as the villain alongside Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah character. Their alliance makes sense. This duo could have even gotten a second film in the franchise. Having left this film on a cliffhanger at the White House scene, where they take off and fly in air force one together. Allowing the film to end there could have allowed the next film to take place with the two of them slowly conquering the world with the wishes.
Diana and Trevor
When you have a cast as fantastic and wonderful as this film has, you just want to see more of it. When you first see Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) reappear you don’t immediately know what is going on. We know that somehow Diana’s wish came true. And we can see that Trevor is in a different body, but somehow Diana knows it is him. But before we can process what is happening it cuts to them walking and talking around Washington DC. Another scene in between would have helped us see more of Diana’s thought and emotional processing of what is happening.
Diana seems unbothered by the fact that her boyfriend’s consciousness is inside another man’s body. A scene where she acknowledges that she made a wish and it came true would have added only a few minutes of the film. Perhaps even just one scene where she questions the ethics of sleeping with Steve while he’s in another man’s body. Or maybe even a scene where she seems concerned for the man whose body Steve now inhibits. We don’t see the off-camera thought process she goes through. It isn’t until the morning after scenes, where she is begrudgingly getting out of bed to find out why her boyfriend is suddenly here.
The film is cinematically wonderful, the storytelling is compelling and the cast is fantastic. The hope or theory that Wonder Woman 1984 should have been a three-hour film is not a complaint or critic of the film. It comes from a desire to have more, even a few scenes more, of a fantastic film.
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