8 Terrible Performances That Almost Ruined Recent Movie Scenes
2. Gal Gadot & Pedro Pascal - Wonder Woman 84
Gal Gadot isn't a terrible actress, but I think it's fair to say sometimes she doesn't quite nail a take and the filmmakers decide to use it anyway. See the awful delivery of "Kal El, no!" in Justice League for good proof of that.
One scene towards the end of Wonder Woman 84 similarly almost hits with a thud thanks to a stilted delivery by Gadot, and also the hammy overacting of co-star Pedro Pascal. It comes in the climax, as Gadot's superhero battles Pascal's Max Lord and urges them to renounce magical wishes they'd made earlier in the film.
It's set up as the big hero moment - the moment where Wonder Woman comes out on top - and the swelling score and cross-cutting around the world certainly does wonders (hey, hey) to sell the gravity of the moment, but Gadot's mostly flat delivery doesn't imbue the words with the power they should have.
Contrast this with Pascal, who is going full ham shouting things like "you can't stop me, no one can!" in the most over-enunciated way, and it throws the tone completely off.