For this last episode in the series, I’m not even going to bother with actual character quotes. So here’s Max telling Diana she’s too late.
Due to all the wishes, there’s a wild gust of wind blowing in the room. This is a shot of Gal Gadot doing the worst “walking against the wind” mime I’ve ever seen. Seriously, it’s like the director said “Okay, pretend it’s blowing really hard! No, you’re doing it too well; do it worse!”
While Diana’s being blown away by the wind, for some reason Max takes off his coat and moves to the center of the room to gloat. He goes to stand under some big blue light that seems to serve no function whatsoever other than to give him a dramatic light.
Diana tries repeatedly to lasso him out of there, but the wind prevents this. Why is she even trying? He’s already done the work. Short of killing him, which she won’t do, he can’t be stopped by arguments. Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal just stands under this light, gesticulating wildly for what feels like an hour.
And while she’s trying to reason with him, somehow Diana’s managed to snag Max’s ankle with her lasso. Even though this happens off-screen so we can’t see how the hell she’s done it.
And apparently under the influence of the lasso, and even though Diana destroyed the telecast, the world is seeing this golden glow. WHY? HOW IS THIS HAPPENING? This movie has completely abandoned all pretense of reason and is just doing whatever it wants.
So Diana’s giving Max this speech about how important Truth is, and really, it’s incomprehensible. The speech makes no sense. The lasso doesn’t make you more susceptible to reason, it just compels you to tell the truth. Oh, and it somehow lets you see things. So what’s Diana trying to do here?
We’re shown the world listening in as Diana talks and everyone’s like “Well, she makes an excellent point. I should take my wish back.” WHYYYYY? Given the probability that there’s SOME percentage of people who are getting EXACTLY what they want, why would they renounce their wishes?
What the hell was Max’s plan, anyway? Diana even asks him this aloud and he avoids answering it. What’s his endgame? We NEVER FIND OUT.
So apparently these are scenes from Max’s life, which isn’t made clear until several minutes into them. At this point I tuned out whatever Diana was spouting, so maybe it tied into that?
Here’s a shot of what we presume to be Max’s father slapping his mother, which I thought was in really poor taste. If you want this to be a part of his past, there are more sensitive ways to address it than just dropping it into the movie in the final few minutes while your lead character blathers on about Truth.
Max is hiding his eyes from his own memories! Why? He’s been living with them his entire LIFE. He probably thinks about them A LOT as it is. Why would he suddenly react to them so strongly?
Here’s his father remonstrating with him after wetting the bed. So I guess the movie’s making the case that Max grew up to be power-hungry because he had a terrible childhood? Again: show us this in the BEGINNING, movie. It’s a little too late to make me care at all about this character.
Meanwhile, the world is falling apart. Nuclear missiles are randomly appearing out of nowhere; I guess that’s what someone wished for. But you have to imagine there were people who wished the exact OPPOSITE of this, which would cancel it all out. Yet ANOTHER thing the movie completely ignores.
Oop! Someone in Moscow pushed the button! Does it matter? Everyone’s getting their wishes, right? Someone could just wish this wasn’t happening. But will they? Of course not. That’d be too OBVIOUS.
Meanwhile, poor Alistair, the only character I cared at all about, is running around loose in the street. HE wished for his father to be with him, but of course HIS wish didn’t come true. ‘Cause why would this movie start playing by its own rules NOW?
And for some reason, Max can see his son out there. How? That’s never been a part of this wishing stone nonsense before, and certainly the LASSO isn’t doing it. Cripes, right at the end here, it’s like every executive making this movie got to have their say. It ALL went in, regardless of if it made any sense at all.
So here, Max has finally somehow seen the error of his ways and renounced his wish, and is running to go find his son. How’d he slip the lasso? What happens when a wish is renounced? Does it all go back to normal? The answer is: “sometimes”, as we’ll see.
Remember that dividing wall from the beginning of the movie? It’s vanishing into dust now, and a river is flowing in the channel it leave behind. Was there a river before? Who can even remember?
Here’s Barbara, having renounced her wish. Or, rather, her two wishes. Why would she? Just because she lost her fight to Diana? That’s not enough, I’d think, but hey, it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Max somehow finds his son and it’s super touching and all that. He’s gonna be a Good Dad now, isn’t that great? Isn’t it also great that the mother has been completely absent from this story? Yay, Truth!
Later (how MUCH later we’ll never know), and Diana’s just walking around, reveling in the joy of humanity, blah blah blah. She runs into the dude whose body got taken over by Steve’s spirit and they share a word. For a second it seems like Diana’s going to ask him out, or hope that he asks HER out, then the moment passes. I really don’t get this moment. It’s positively LOADED with that “meet cute” energy, and yet the movie doesn’t make it happen, which is weird, because this is not a movie known for its restraint in going for the obvious tropes. Whatever, she told Steve she’d never love again, so… great.
Then she’s looking at the sky, then she’s flying around in the clouds again, then she hears trouble a-brewin’ down below, so she swoops down, and that’s the end. No further voiceover about the value of Truth to tie it back in to the opening narration, which would have been an acceptable element this movie could have pulled off. No summation of the new status quo after the world went mad for a few days, because GUARANTEED everyone remembers it. No last look at what Barbara’s up to, NOTHING. Movie’s just OVER. Oh, except for the obligatory post-credits scene, which we’re about to get to.
We follow a woman walking into a crowded scene, where a pole falls over, about to smash another woman and her baby. The mysterious lady calmly reaches up and stops the pole from falling with one hand.
Hey, it’s Lynda Carter, who introduces herself as Asteria to the woman who wants to thank her for saving her baby’s life. You know, the Asteria who sacrificed herself to save the Amazons? From the story Diana told earlier in the movie? WHY THE HELL IS SHE EVEN HERE? Actually, why am I even asking questions that will never be answered?
And then the final shot of the movie, and I called it: Carter turns to camera, and I said aloud “Now wink”, and she did. Because it’s THAT kind of movie.
Thank you for reading this series and going on this journey with me; I couldn’t have made it without you. Friday, we get back to the REAL stories, continuing our look at the Jamie Delano Animal Man!
