(FANTASY/ACTION-ADVENTURE)
★★
Directed by Rian Johnson
Screenplay by Rian Johnson
Starring: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Domhnall Gleeson, Andy Serkis, Laura Dern, Benicio del Toro, Kelly Marie Tran, Billie Lourd, Gwendoline Christie, Anthony Daniels, Lupita Nyong'o
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence.
152 minutes
Verdict: With a minimalist plot needlessly stretched into the longest runtime in the series, with a confusingly cartoony and flippant approach, Rian Johnson's entry in the Star Wars saga is among the weakest, despite some strong ideas and visuals.
This review contains details that may be considered minor spoilers.
You could say THE FORCE AWAKENS played things safe, but it should be acknowledged how bold and brash that movie was in its efforts to return the Star Wars franchise into something "safe." In its execution, THE FORCE AWAKENS is a very fun movie, buoyant in tone, filled with inventive but familiar action, evocative imagery and carried by great new characters like Rey, Finn and BB-8; but in story and substance, THE FORCE AWAKENS is hollow, essentially reprising the original 1977 STAR WARS to an absurd degree (listening to Michael Kaminski's exhaustively researched book, The Secret History of Star Wars, recently, it's remarkable how similar even the THE FORCE AWAKENS's superficial differences from the 1977 are to that script's earlier drafts), and going frustratingly out of its way to return the story to the original trilogy's status quo. Yes, the Rebel Alliance claimed victory over the Galactic Empire at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI, but by the beginning of THE FORCE AWAKENS, Leia is already commanding a "Resistance" against an improbably well-funded paramilitary organization carrying on the legacy of the Empire, now called "The First Order" (even as they represent the establishment governing body, the New Republic, the Resistance is meant to be a Rebellion-style scrappy band of fighters). By the halfway mark of the movie, the entire game board has been reset with the complete and utter destruction of the New Republic, and I guess the First Order is supposed to be the new version of the Empire even though they don't really have any established political power, and the Resistance is basically just the Rebel Alliance all over again. At this point, they're just two paramilitary organizations fighting each other across space for some vague notion of power versus democracy or something. It's fun in spots, but also lacks meaning.
With THE LAST JEDI, Rian Johnson, the writer/director of LOOPER, THE BROTHERS BLOOM and BRICK, takes a stab at the franchise with considerably more creative freedom than Abrams was afforded by the difficult position of rebooting the franchise ten years after George Lucas's much-maligned prequel trilogy. For better or worse, Johnson exercises much of that freedom in thumbing his nose at what's come before, frequently subverting expectations more for the sake of being subversive than in service of a worthwhile thematic construct, then earnestly positioning itself as a new direction for the series, but not necessarily a more interesting direction. Like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, THE LAST JEDI follows a much more stripped down and looser plot than its immediate predecessor, but THE LAST JEDI does not strive to be the EMPIRE-inspired "dark sequel" of the sequel trilogy. In fact, it's cartoony. Not just light in tone, and not humormous in the style that THE FORCE AWAKENS introduced to the series; no, it's goofy. In addition to sight gags that go beyond the organic cleverness of BB-8 flashing a thumbs-up lighter and into Robot Chicken territory, many of the characters are self-aware archetypes and act in ways that appear to consciously make light of themselves and the narrative. It doesn't exactly feel like the Star Wars I know and love, while the speechifying about moving forward and not dwelling on what came before tells me I should be okay with that, but if it doesn't feel like Star Wars, what's the point of all this?
The story picks up almost immediately where THE FORCE AWAKENS left off, with Rey (Daisy Ridley) on the Jedi steps at Ahch-To seeking training from the legendary Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who turns out to not be quite what she'd expected after his years in self-imposed exile, following the turn to the Dark Side of his nephew and apprentice, Ben Solo, now known as Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Meanwhile, the base of the Resistance has been exposed following their successful campaign against Starkiller Base, so Luke's sister, General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher, to whom the movie is dedicated) is forced to evacuate with the help of the skilled but hot-headed Resistance pilot, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac). During the evacuation, the Resistance sustains heavy losses and is trapped by the evil First Order's forces, led by the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis, beneath CGI performance-capture), Snoke's apprentice Kylo Ren, and the sniveling General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). In order to shake the First Order off the Resistance's trail, defected First Order stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) teams up with a maintenance worker named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran, channeling an obnoxiously anime-style character) to find a codebreaker who can help them.
Especially in the context of Star Wars, its worth noting that THE LAST JEDI is 152 minutes long, a whole half hour longer than the original 1977 film, and the longest in the series so far, 10 minutes longer than the next runner up, EPISODE II- ATTACK OF THE CLONES. Granted, there are longer movies than 152 minutes, and some of them are great movies, but considering that the original STAR WARS is setting up this original fictional galaxy entirely, introducing at least seven iconic characters (Luke, Han, Leia, Vader, Obi-Wan, C-3PO and R2-D2; I'm willing to hear arguments for Tarkin), a religion, politics, and more, while finding ample time for great, stunning action sequences and character development, all in a nice, tight two hours, the fact that a movie that does as little as THE LAST JEDI insists on being a full 25% longer is just obnoxious. To be fair, EPISODE III- REVENGE OF THE SITH is 140 minutes, and while I'd say that's also too long, it has a lot more to deal with and makes much better use of that time. This kind of runtime on THE LAST JEDI is lazy and undisciplined, but reportedly, Johnson's rough cut was three hours long, which is head-scratching given how thin and ultimately inconsequential the plot actually is.
THE LAST JEDI is not without its strong ideas. It attempts to introduce some fresh moral gray areas into the conflict between Kylo Ren, Rey, the Resistance and the First Order, and like it or not (sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't), there's no denying that the movie expands the view of the Star Wars galaxy into new areas of exploration. There's lots of little things that fans are likely to love, regardless of substance, such as a moment involving alien creatures with conspicuous udders, but these are the superficial things like Aunt Beru's blue milk. Everyone who's noticed Beru pouring a cup of blue milky liquid in the original film gets a kick out of references to blue milk, but that's not why people love Star Wars. Many of the visuals are striking, and there's certainly some gorgeous action sequences, most notably the well-advertised battle between a collection of rusty, low-flying Resistance craft with plows that stir up red dirt against a line of updated AT-AT walkers on a salty white planet surface. There are a few good moments of starfighter action, in addition to a lot more time spent with Poe Dameron than was in the previous film, but that extra time reveals him not to be so much the cocky and brash but talented pilot as much as he's a borderline psychopath who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake on both sides. The action is spread fairly thin though over the extended runtime, and most disappointing of all is the distinct shortage of lightsaber action. There's a good action sequence with a lot of lightsaber carnage, but fans of a good lightsaber duel will be sorely disappointed.
THE FORCE AWAKENS is definitely rocky in spots; rushed and occasionally lazy in its narrative, essentially remaking the original STAR WARS, but it succeeded in introducing a trio of great new characters in Rey, Finn and BB-8, all of whom are reduced to much smaller and less interesting roles this time around. It's unlikely that J.J. Abrams had much in the way of honest answers for all the questions he left hanging at the end of his movie and was more interested in posing the questions in the first place, and whether its answering them or not, Rian Johnson's film doesn't put a lot of thought into them either. With the exception of a few well-designed sequences, like the aforementioned AT-AT battle, the visuals are also significant step down from Abrams's admittedly imitative style, and it lacks that movie's sense of joy, hollow or not.
As easy as it is to speak negatively about the film, I didn't hate THE LAST JEDI. I didn't like it much either. I hope I'll come to enjoy it more when I get around to rewatching it (although, that extra long runtime doesn't help in that regard), but upon seeing it for the first time, my main thought was, "I'm not sure if it's the worst movie of the series, but I'm not sure it's not." Previously, I might have put that on ATTACK OF THE CLONES, but for as clunky and poorly executed as that movie is many technical aspects, its concepts are more interesting, its action is more spectacular and fun, and its emotions, overwrought as they may be in practice, are still more engaging. THE LAST JEDI has better dialogue and acting, but that can only amplify a movie of this kind, not make it. It lacks a real point.
Thematically, the movie suggests the leaving behind of the old for the ushering in of the new, but it's a cold comfort when the 'new' is a Star Wars movie that doesn't feel like Star Wars.
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| Images via Lucasfilm |
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