Block Busted

 Way back in March, my wife expressed enthusiasm for the pending release of the sequel to Wonder Woman, creatively titled Wonder Woman 1984. Not Wonder Woman 2 or II. As a big fan of the initial outing, she was full of anticipation for whatever the next installment would be. 

Then movie theaters closed. And stayed closed. Studios scrambled to make alternative schedules for their big releases as spring gave way to summer, summer gave way to fall, and suddenly it was Christmas time. Warner Brothers announced that they would finally give the world a peek at what would have been the big show way back in the winter of 2019, but moved to back to June 2020. As mentioned earlier, conditions would not allow anyone to line up to buy tickets in June. Or July. And while we all struggled with the concept of social distancing, Hollywood tried to figure out how to deliver its product to the masses, huddled in front of their televisions. 

Hey, maybe they could use all that streaming business to get folks to line up virtually to see the next big thing. Warner Brothers announced the public could finally see Diana Prince take her Amazonian super powers into the mid-1980s. It should be noted that announcement came with the assertion that their movie would premiere on streaming and in theaters. The options that were left for my wife and I were the two drive in theaters located thirty minutes away from our home. This is why we decided to take our chances on HBO Max on Christmas night. 

After entering our codes and verifying emails, the play button was pushed. We have a pretty big TV, and a decent sound system, but the difference between our living room couch and a seat in the center of a theater designed for projecting big deals. And there was also a big difference between the last time we saw Wonder Woman, fighting foes mortal and immortal during World War I. 1984 didn't carry the same historic appeal. And after a promising start, the conflict generated between Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig turned into a pretty standard super hero/villain exchange. When Wiig finally morphed into The Cheetah, the battle between her and Wonder Woman took place primarily in muddy gray twilight that wouldn't have been saved by a screen ten times the size of our TV. 

Our disappointment was palpable. At the same time, it could be that there was no way that my wife and I would be satisfied. Not after waiting all those months. Not after living through all that we had lived through while we were waiting. Short of coming up with a cure for the coronavirus, there was probably not much Wonder Woman could do to make a splash in the middle of our shelter in place holiday. 

Will there be more opportunities to be surprised and amazed in our home theater? Perhaps. But this one just left us feeling a little more locked inside of a year that would not end.