"Wonder Woman 1984"

What better way for The Grandstander to start a brand new year than with a movie review, and the I'll start with our New Year's Eve movie from last night, "Wonder Woman 1984."

 Actually, the perfect review for this movie came from the mouth of Mrs. Grandstander as the final credits were rolling, and I quote:

"The first one was better."

Says it all.  The 2017 "Wonder Woman" was much better.  This one was convoluted, went on too long (2 hours, 31 minutes), had some guy named Pedro Pascal completely overact as the villain, and was an exercise in showing off and perhaps the overuse of CGI special effects.

On the plus side, it had some cool observations to make about fads and fashions of the mid-1980's, Kristin Wiig was good in her role as Diana's friend and co-worker who goes bad, but mainly it had Gal Gadot in the  title role, and just seeing her in this spectacular dress almost made the entire movie worthwhile.

Seriously, Miss Gadot is unbelievably beautiful and very charming as Diana/Wonder Woman, and she can no doubt churn out a new WW movie every two or three years and live comfortably forever, but I would like to see her take on something else.  You know, stretch it out a bit and do more than the comic book stuff.  She is going to be in the new Kenneth Branagh Agatha Christie movie "Death on the Nile" later this year.  IMDB also tells us that she is in pre-production for a 2022 version of  "Cleopatra", and, most intriguingly, in a TV mini-series based on the life of Hedy Lamarr.  So, there's that to look forward to.  There is also a Wonder Woman 3 and a few more Justice League movies in the works to keep the big paychecks coming in.  

Gal Gadot gets Four Stars, but "Wonder Woman 1984" only gets Two Stars from The Grandstander.