Hey, it’s Barbara! Hi, Barbara! Hey, why’s she look weird?
Oh no, she’s bleached her hair and let her makeup run!
Barbara has become some kind of human-animal hybrid. Her spots would lead us to believe they’re going for cheetah, ’cause that’s what she is in the comics, but it doesn’t really come across in the movie. For one thing, she’s white instead of tawny. And for another thing, we never really get a good look at her before she starts leaping about, going from electrical tower to tower. I half-expected her to fry herself on the first one, which would’ve been hilarious.
Yet another instance of someone using a vertical pole-like object to swing around using momentum. Seriously, this move is so over-used in this movie. Why? Who thought this looked cool? It doesn’t. Especially the way it’s shot, which is that the actual swing takes SO LONG that anyone could step in and knock the swinger off the pole-substitute. STOPPIT, MOVIE.
Anyway, here’s Diana covering up with the armor of Asterius, as Barbara’s just knocking her around. Why? Diana can easily fight her, which we’ll see in a minute. If they’d taken this time to show Diana trying to reason with Barbara to spare her the beatdown Diana can provide, it would make sense. But they’re both silent throughout this fight. There’s not even a cat-fights-bird joke or pun here.
There’s kind of a cool/scary shot here, where Barbara pries the wings open to get at Diana inside, but again, it’s all so damned dark it hardly has the greatest effect.
Here’s why they had Diana covering up, so she could be seen shedding the now-useless wings… triumphantly? I guess? Revealing herself heroically as the music swells… but it just falls flat. Why was she covering up this whole time if she could have just done this… ARGH.
Ssssooooo… here’s a stupid new wrinkle. Barbara starts swinging on these electrical cables to catch up to Diana, who’s swinging on her lasso. Then they have a stupid aerial fight.
Most of it is Barbara clinging to Diana as they flail around in mid-air.
At one point, they start twirling around, not even fighting each other, as though they were center stage in a Cirque du Soleil show. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS, MOVIE?
Then they fall into the water. And you’d hope that maybe Barbara would start hissing and acting like she hates it, ’cause cats and water, right? But no, it’s just a murky, confusing underwater fight.
And, of course, an electrical cable has snapped, and is making its slow way toward the pool of water, which… wait, is it a lake they’re in? A river? Where… what? I just took it as read as I was watching, but… where the hell are they?
Diana finally starts pleading with Barbara to renounce her wish, which of course, she refuses to do. By the way, why does Barbara look like that? I know she made that wish to be an apex predator, but does that mean she has to be part-human? Wouldn’t it have been funnier if the wish just gave her a big gun?
Anyway, Barbara is zapped when the cable hits the water, but Diana’s fine. Meaning that there was no actual danger for Diana in this entire fight, so why should I care?
Diana gently deposits the twitching Barbara on solid ground. Gosh, what an emotional journey this movie’s just taken me on. Fortunately, we’re almost through, True Believers. Join me on Monday for Part 14!
