It’sPedro Pascal’sworld right now, and we’re just lucky enough to be living in it.
Much-maligned might be an understatement when it comes toWonder Woman 1984.
Many view the film as anarrative failure, andits controversies haven’t improved with timeso far.
Image via Warner Bros.
Was this the best superhero film in terms of quality for Pascal to co-star in?
Did he still deliver an astoundingly refined performance worthy of celebration?
That’s why I’m here.
Image via Warner Bros.
For one, in1984,Lord was born Maxwell Lorenzano.
Those are perfectly understandable and sympathetic motivations; Lord just executes his goals the wrong way.
Through that wrong way,1984depicts Lord asemblematic of real world 1980s businessmen; think theGordon Geckosof the world.
Image via Warner Bros
Lord’s quotable sales pitch advocates for excess and boils down to materialism specifically, American materialism.
Lord even dyes his hair light blond, making Pascal almost unrecognizable at first glance.
His eyes always carry a touch of reserved tenacity, of watchful caution.
Alistair represents the selfless side of Lord’s goals.
Pascal’s frenzied recklessness is too real to doubt its authenticity.
He wants Alistair to be “proud” of his father’s name, to want for nothing.
Yes, we can chuckle in retrospect over Pedro Pascalplaying another adoring and slightly immoral father.
But Maxwell Lord isn’t Din Djarin or Joel Miller.
Pascal’s intimacy with the young Perez is both instinctively easy and fraught with fear.
Without his image, there’s no money; without money, he can’t care for his child.
His false arrogance even becomes real in his sharp, cutting stride and the shameless ferocity of his demands.
Where once Lord was flirtatious and playful, he’s now cruel and mocking.
There are moments when his hunger for omnipotence makes him truly threatening, not just unsettling.
And once the world’s wishes flow through him, he displays a sort of deranged joy.
Lord’s drunk on power, soaking in everything he’s wanted and a future replete with possibilities.
Pascal lets his despair and devotion play out with the catastrophic intensity of an opera.
Lord bleeds sympathy, not blood, when he reunites with Alistair.
Despite his calculated intentions and willful missteps, Lord’s allowed a hopeful future and the chance for redemption.
