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Wonder Woman 84: But…

Spoilers, both here and in Walter Chaw’s excellent review. Which is not kind.

But I’m just here to be annoyed about the fragmented plot. Right as I was falling asleep last night, I sat up and said “Honey, were the armed robbers at the beginning the real heroes of that movie?” The answer is yes. If they hadn’t heard about the jewelers with a sideline in smuggled artifacts, the McGuffin would have found its way into Max Lord’s hands with nobody any wiser. We know this because the shipping box had a receipt with Lord’s name on it; it was on its way to Lord when the robbers hit the jewelry shop.

Then I got a bit more annoyed, because I realized that there’s no particular reason Wonder Woman needs to be the person who foils the robbery. OK, someone did, but she doesn’t show up until the situation is already out of control: one robber has dropped his bag already, so if the McGuffin was in that bag it’s not going anywhere. And since one of the other robbers is dangling a kid over a railing before Wonder Woman arrives, it seems vanishingly unlikely that anyone’s getting away with a chunk of mystical citrine.

So she’s only there for another action scene. If it feels disjointed and loosely connected to the rest of the plot, it’s because it is. If she’d been across town, the McGuffin would still arrive at the Smithsonian for her to trip over it — sorry, no, wait, it’s Barbara Minerva who trips. If she doesn’t trip right as Diana’s arriving at work, in an otherwise fairly empty lobby, then there’s no Barbara/Diana connection.

Man, a lot of this plot relies on people being klutzy, literally. The robbery was screwed up because one of the robbers was a klutz who couldn’t keep his gun hidden. Klutzes are heroes.

It’s also pretty lucky that Diana works at the Smithsonian, huh? Good thing Max Lord put his headquarters in DC, instead of, say, somewhere in Texas!

The MCU is far from perfect, but it’s stuff like this that makes me appreciate Kevin Feige.

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