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  A flashback to Themyscira. [credit: YouTube/Warner Bros. ]

Count me among the many millions who likely logged onto HBO Max on Christmas Day to watch Wonder Woman 1984 , Director Patty Jenkins' hotly anticipated, oft-delayed stand-alone follow-up to her 2017 global blockbuster, Wonder Woman . I'm a major fan of the latter, which gave us our super-powered Amazonian's origin story, and had high hopes for the follow-up.

Those hopes weren't completely dashed, but they weren't really fulfilled either. While Wonder Woman 1984 still has a bit of the old magic, and its leads all turn in terrific performances, the film is hampered by a frequently nonsensical plot, extraneous showy action sequences, and it's way too heavy-handed with the moralizing. But it still delivers quite a lot of slick, 1980s-infused fun if you turn your brain off and just go with it—and you'll definitely want to stick around for a post-credits scene.

(Some spoilers below, with a couple of major spoilers below the second gallery. We'll give you a heads up when we get there.)

Enlarge / Wonder Woman 1984, now coming to HBO Max the same day it hits theaters. (credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)

After weeks of rumors, a leaked trailer has let the golden lasso out of the bag: Warner Bros. Pictures' oft-delayed film Wonder Woman 1984 has finally conceded to the pandemic with a massive digital launch plan.

The film's December 25 launch date had been previously announced after being bumped out of June, then once again out of October. That Christmas launch date remains fixed for theaters around the world—including those in the United States that remain open in the face of rising COVID-19 contraction rates. The news today is that HBO Max , which currently operates exclusively in North America, will additionally serve the film on the same day—and without charging existing subscribers any extra fee on top of its $14.99/mo rate.

This plan differs from Disney's September launch of its live-action Mulan remake , which was restricted to theaters in countries without the paid Disney+ subscription service. In territories with Disney+, on the other hand, subscribers could pay a one-time fee of $30 to access the film for unlimited viewing , or wait until December 4 to access the film as part of the standard Disney+ $7.99/mo service.

Warner Bros. dropped the latest trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 today during the DC Fandome online event , giving us our first real look at Kristen Wiig's villainous Cheetah. Bonus: we get to see a miraculously revived Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) don parachute pants in an attempt to blend with the times, much to the amusement of Gal Gadot's Diana Prince.

Inspired by the comic book heroine created by William Moulton Marston in the 1940s for DC Comics, Wonder Woman made her big-screen debut in the DCEU with 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , followed by 2017's Justice League . As we reported previously, the first fell short of box office expectations; the second bombed outright. So when Jenkins took on Wonder Woman's origin story, she deliberately departed from the grim humorlessness and dark sensibility of those earlier films, bringing a brighter energy and wit to her tale, along with the usual action. That vision paid off: Wonder Woman went on to gross $821 million worldwide and earned critical raves, making it the most successful of the DCEU films thus far.

Since we're now in the 1980s, Diana is operating in a Cold War scenario, taking on Pedro Pascal's villainous Maxwell Lord , a shrewd and powerful businessman. Wiig plays Barbara Ann Minerva, a British archaeologist who will eventually evolve into her arch-nemesis Cheetah .