Wonder Woman 1984 review : Gal Gadot and Chris Pine don’t set the screen on fire

Wonder Woman 1984

Cert: 12A, 2hrs 31mins                                                             Out now in cinemas

Rating:

Come Away

Cert: PG, 1hr 34mins                                                                 Out now in cinemas

Rating:

Let Him Go

Cert: 15, 1hr 53mins                                                                   Out now in cinemas

Rating:

Three years ago, the original Wonder Woman film was so good it not only established the first female superhero in a leading role but breathed new life into a superhero genre that was beginning to feel a little tired.

Thanks to Gal Gadot’s charismatic performance and Patty Jenkins’s superb direction, this was a film with real scale and impact. Now its much awaited sequel arrives, and all credit to Warner Bros for pressing ahead with the release at such difficult times for cinema. 

It really is Wonder Woman to the rescue.

Sadly it’s not quite as good as the original, but for sheer spectacle it still takes a lot of beating. As the title suggests, the setting is now America in the mid-1980s, when greed was definitely good. 

And that’s what Wonder Woman 1984 turns out to be all about, thanks to a plot device straight out of a comic book – a mysterious crystal that will grant a single wish to anyone holding it but always takes something in return.

Nevertheless, when Diana (Gadot) – now working at the Smithsonian in Washington – gets her hands on it, she wishes for the return of her long-dead boyfriend, ace pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). 

Her geeky new colleague Barbara (an excellent Kristen Wiig) wishes to be ‘strong, sexy, cool and special’ like Diana. Uh-oh.

And when the manic, Trumpian baddie Maxwell Lord (an under-powered Pedro Pascal) takes his turn, we’re pretty sure what he’s going to wish for: money and power.

This central theme is a good one but at two-and-a-half hours, it feels over-long, some action scenes are over-extended and it takes too long for the rather complicated rules surrounding the crystal’s use to become clear. 

Nor do Gadot and Pine set the screen on fire as in the first film. But hey, it’s Christmas, it’s Wonder Woman and it’s a proper blockbuster.

With its gentle pace and occasional flights of fantasy, Come Away looks like an old-fashioned children’s film, albeit one with a starry cast that includes Angelina Jolie, David Oyelowo and Michael Caine. 

But parents be warned: despite attempts to blend Alice In Wonderland with Peter Pan and emphasise the power of a child’s imagination, it has some pretty dark moments.

Let Him Go is one of those modern American dramas that is an old-fashioned western at heart. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane are ranchers whose son is killed in a riding accident and their daughter-in-law remarries. 

But she’s wed a bad ’un and suddenly their grandson is in danger. Time to saddle up and head for North Dakota. Melodramatic but worth catching for Lesley Manville as a terrifying backwoods matriarch.