I thoroughly enjoyed one of these and the other one... oh boy did it stink.
Two movies released to streaming services on Christmas Day. Pixar's Soul dropped on Disney+ while Wonder Woman 1984, DC's 9th installment into their live action movie universe, aka DCEU, released on HBO Max (and some theaters). I watched both the day after Christmas and because of a lack of wifi, I watched them both on my phone, so maybe take my reviews of the visual elements with a grain of salt. Soul was another banger from Pixar while DC continued their trend of not very good movies with Wonder Woman 1984. I'll start with Soul because I have a lot to say about WW84 and most of it is bad.
Soul (stream now on Disney+)
Soul follows middle school band teacher and jazz piano player Joe Gardner. His life hasn't gone according to plan, but when he is transported to another realm and must help someone find their passion, Joe discovers what it really means to have soul. This is Pixar's most adult oriented movie yet. It delivers a very thoughtful and uplifting message about finding your spark and how our passions and life purposes come together to make life worth living. I don't mean "adult oriented" in a bad way, it's just that I'm not sure the themes of souls and life purposes and even a lot of the comedy will resonate with kids. Speaking of the comedy, and I won't go into spoilers, but there were a couple moments in which I laughed out loud. Soul looks incredible. The animation flawlessly captures that New York City look and feel while the light and simple color palate of the Great Before helps ease the mind of the somewhat heavy subject matter.
The whole voice acting cast was great. Jamie Foxx brought a ton of life to Joe Gardner and Tiny Fey (I didn't even realize it was her) was great with 22. Graham Norton as Moonwind was also exceptional and needs to be in more stuff. I don't know what it was, but the voices of the Jerrys and Terry had some type of ASMR effect on me. It was so soothing to hear them speak. My one and only complaint about Soul is that I felt a bit led on going into this thinking it was a Pixar jazz movie. There was a little music in it, but really not as much as other Pixar films. That feels like a bit of a missed opportunity when you have Jamie Foxx as your leading man.
While I'm not sure I'd put it in the upper echelon of Pixar movies, Soul is still a really, really good movie with a message that should resonate with everyone who watches it, especially coming out of the insane year we've been living in. I saw some folks saying it brought them to tears, and while it didn't do that for me, the message was still touching and can give you reason to step back and look at your own life.
Wonder Woman 1984 (in select theaters and streaming on HBO Max)
I was really looking forward to director Patty Jenkins' sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman, one of the few solid DC live action movies. I was looking forward to it so much so that it made my most anticipated for 2020 list I wrote last year. And it turned out to be a huge bummer. It's long and convoluted, emotionless and essentially action less. It was sloppily paced and just a mess. Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig, and Gal Gadot is a stacked cast, but not even they could save this movie. Set in the 1980s, Diana Prince (Gadot) lives a quiet life amongst the mortals, performing heroic acts incognito. But she is forced to muster all her strength, wisdom, and courage to face off against the power hungry Maxwell Lord (Pascal) and the Cheetah (Wiig).
Ok first, this movie was supposed to be set in the 80's but outside of Steve Trevor (Pine) being amazed by things that are different from 1918, it didn't give me a lot of 80's vibes. There was no 80's music that I was aware of and that's a crime after the sick trailer with Blue Monday (above). Secondly, everyone knows DC has a villain problem. That was the biggest flaw in an otherwise solid Wonder Woman debut movie. In the sequel the villains still stunk even though a TON of screen time was devoted to Cheetah and Max Lord. I mean it seemed like Wonder Woman herself was barely in this movie. I can remember two total action scenes with her. And when we got action scenes, the visual effects were horrific. I'm talking amateur level CGI. The mall scene at the beginning of the movie made me nearly stop watching. The acting was Disney Channel level and it was just pointless. In a superhero movie you want to see good action scenes and this movie was starved of it. There was absolutely nothing in this movie that paid off like the "No Man's Land" scene in the first. Thirdly, the opening scene was fine, young Diana learned her lesson about not cheating which I guess was supposed to pay off in the future against Lord and all his wishes but didn't really? That goes back to this just being a long emotionless mess with multiple confusing plot points that lost me.
I know that I have gone after this movie pretty hard, but it wasn't all terrible (just mostly). There were a couple developments that I enjoyed - Diana acquiring her invisible jet and power of flight from the comics. But even these moments, that should have really hit that emotional factor, just didn't. There's also a cameo by Lynda Carter, the original 1970s Wonder Woman, in the mid-credits so that was pretty neat. I have seen some people that enjoyed WW84 and if that's you, I certainly won't ever discredit anyone's opinion but I was just highly disappointed. WW84 is not a worthy sequel after a really great first movie. It takes a huge step backwards, felt completely disconnected, and hardly even focuses on the TITULAR WONDER WOMAN. A shame because she's an amazing character. Ugh.
We have just a few days left in 2020, so if you're looking for something to watch in this week between Christmas and the New Year, I highly recommend Soul. I can't bring myself to recommend WW84, but hey if you want to watch it I suppose it's a decent popcorn flick. Not sure that I will do a top 10 of the year just because it's been such a difficult year for movies. I'm also not sure that I will do a most anticipated this year because everything has been pushed back so much that we'll be getting about 2 years worth of movies in 2021. Hopefully the second year of Drive in Double will be a little more active than the first cursed year. I'm ready to get back in the theaters. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
- BH
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