On Dec. 25, 2020, the second Wonder Woman, “Wonder Woman 1984” movie was released free on HBO Max with a subscription. Since the first movie, “Wonder Woman”  released in 2017 fans have been looking forward to a sequel.

“Wonder Woman 1984” starts off in the year 1984 where Wonder Woman, known as Diana Prince, is disguised as a museum curator living amongst humans, trying to keep a low profile. In her spare time, she goes undercover to commit small acts of heroism, while she seems like any other mortal in her day job.

At the beginning of the movie, you get a glimpse of what Diana’s childhood was like and almost a precursor to what happens. In her ancient beliefs, the truth will always win and the truth cannot be cheated, which is the key to the whole theme of the villain, Max Lord’s character development.

This movie was based on a combination of the D.C. comic books in the comic series Wonder Woman. In this edition, she fights two known villains in the D.C. comics, The Cheetah, played by Kristen Wigg, and Max Lord, played by Pedro Pascal. However, the portrayal of the characters was altered from the original comics. The Cheetah, previously Barbara Minerva, one of Diana’s friends, throughout the movie struggled with her confidence and had an obsession with being as strong as Diana, and with the help of a cursed artifact, she became a human cheetah hybrid. Max Lord, who was formerly a capitalist that had a failed oil business, becomes a telepathic genie, granting wishes for all of the people’s deepest desires, and manipulates them through persuasive tactics to make him the most powerful being.

The movie itself was favorable among many fans, as a D.C. enthusiast, I thought it portrayed the comics in a modern light, well, modern for the 80s. On Rotten Tomatoes the rating is currently 60% on the Tomatometer and a 75% on the audience score, which can mean a few things, such as the overall rating was okay, but the viewers still thought that the movie was good enough to watch again.

Although the movie is only available on HBO Max and in theatres, I highly recommend “Wonder Woman 1984”. The 80s aesthetic, the action aspect and the idea of a worldwide natural disaster type of events are extremely relatable in the year 2020. If you are going to watch the movie, you need to watch the first “Wonder Woman” released in 2017, because it will provide context. Overall, I believe this sequel was one of the better ones D.C. has put out that I have seen and has definitely lived up to the hype.