The Rise of Skywalker

Title: The Rise of Skywalker

Directed by: J.J. Abrams

Story by: Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow, J.J. Abrams, Chris Terrio

Nine movies and 40 years later, does it stick the landing? Well, I watched this movie less than 24 hours ago, and let me be honest, I’m struggling to remember a single thing about it. I came home and promptly watched a couple episodes of The Witcher series on Netflix (review coming soon). Stick the landing? Buddy, it barely registered before it skipped off into nothing. This movie is its own Force ghost.

The most fun I had with this movie is probably watching people online use it as an excuse to re-litigate The People vs. Rian Johnson for the billionth time in two years. And yeah, in many ways The Rise of Skywalker feels like it’s trying to escape The Last Jedi’s shadow, to the movie’s great discredit and detriment.

With one director helming parts 1 and 3 and another steering part 2, now more than ever the trilogy is a bit of a meandering mess. Online commenters either take this as vindication or insult to whatever stance they had regarding The Last Jedi, but honestly to me looks more like a multimillion dollar version of the joke writing assignment where one wants to write about a woman drinking tea and the other about a space invasion.

New elements from The Last Jedi that promised a different course for the series (anyone can be a hero), are either quietly dropped or waffled. Rey’s parents were nobodies so anybody can be a hero but wait, she’s the Emperor’s grand-daughter so no it’s all about ancestry BUT WAIT AGAIN maybe Finn (John Boyega) can use the Force so let’s just hint at that and never do anything with it. I don’t know if the series needed a single director or writer, but at the very, very least, the absolute barest minimum, it needed some kind of agreement about what Star Wars actually is.

Admittedly, the plot of the original Star Wars trilogy is not without its obvious cracks and flaws as writers constructed the story while it was being built—Darth Vader being Luke’s father still feels like an ass-pull, as does Luke miraculously being Leia’s brother. But if nothing else, the series at least felt tonally and thematically consistent. Take what you want--youthful aspiration, the lure of adventure, the redemptive power of friendship and love--the core was always there.

Well, the sequel trilogy is hollow to its core. While The Last Jedi certainly had something to say (perhaps too much), all The Rise of Skywalker wants to say is “Wheee!” and occasionally “Remember this?”

The plot is a bit like listening to a breathless five-year-old playing with his action figures: This happens and then this happens and then THIS happens and BAM! BOOM! but then THIS happens and then... Everything is bigger! Louder! Better! What if Force lightning, but more?! Cuts between scenes come at you at lightspeed, with barely a chance to register before we go hurtling off to the next scene. Nothing has any consequence. People appear to die but don’t three or four times, then one major one does actually bite the Force irretrievably, but nobody refers to this moment ever again. New characters are introduced then promptly disappear, there are a series of magic things that are needed to find other magic things which are lost but then immediately retrieved.

It’s not a movie capable of withstanding a single “Why?”

It’s all of the narrative incoherence of Abrams with very little of the visual verve. Abrams used to be good, at the very least, at imparting his goofy space adventures with some spectacle, but this time even shots that should make you go “Wow!”—skipping among planets at lightspeed, an underground ice cavern chase, a massive fleet waiting in shadowy fog, the arrival of the cavalry—don’t because they’re barely there on the screen for three seconds. The final climactic showdown takes place on the Death Star and space battle er, on an evil planet that is eternally night with bursts of lightning, and sadly pitch blackness isn’t really conducive to delivering impressive visuals.

There is an effort to impart the action with a sense of weight and finality, but as with much of this movie it is all text, zero texture. The reborn Emperor declares “I am ALL of the Sith!” and Rey counters with “And I am ALL of the Jedi!” and I don’t believe either of them because there’s no reason for me to. I don’t know what those words even mean. People agonize about killing this one mass murderer, but then happily mow down armored Stormtroopers we’ve established are actually brain-washed slave-soldiers. 

The one stab at a theme appears to be that all it takes is a courageous few to stand up to evil, that even just one voice of dissent can rally millions, but we’re just told that. Repeatedly. The actual rallying appears completely off-screen. In a straining effort to tie the nine movies all back together, it ends with a shot of one character on a planet she’s never been to, with talismans from one character who always wanted to leave it and another who was a prisoner there.

But for all that, I didn’t hate The Rise of Skywalker. It’s unoriginal, brainless, ephemeral, far too overstuffed to properly show off its own spectacle, but I didn’t hate it.

Maybe all that Star Wars movies can be anymore is vehicles for nostalgia, and maybe I can live with that. It was kind of nice to see Mark Hamill again, however briefly, and Carrie Fisher, however awkwardly, and even Harrison Ford, however gnostically.

As Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, Adam Driver remains one of the best things in the new series, imparting a bit of the Han Solo cockiness into his character. The new trio of Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac have glimpses of energy and chemistry, despite their scenes being kind of Death Star cannoned by the runaway plot. I just wished they had been better served by the story and edit. Boyega in particular I could have watched an entire movie about—he’s got the only interesting backstory, and the actor oozes fun, charm and charisma. I would love a story about ordinary people in the Star Wars universe rising to the moment to become heroes.

But if I never get it, that’s okay. I didn’t think I was getting any more Star Wars after Return of the Jedi, but then the prequels happened. I didn’t think we were getting more after that, but then Rogue One, Solo and this trilogy. I’m okay if we don’t get any more. I’m okay if we do.

The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t especially feel like the end of anything. That’s okay, too.

“Remember this?” I sure do, movie. I sure do. I probably won’t remember you, movie, but the feeling of Star Wars? I’m never going to forget.

Solo: A Mostly Harmless Story

Title: Solo: A Star Wars Story

Directed by: Ron Howard
Written by: Lawrence Kasdan and Johnathan Kasdan

I was cautiously optimistic going into this movie, and still found it a touch underwhelming.

It was harmless.

Well. Mostly harmless.

THE SHITSHOW THAT WAS PROMISED

Perhaps that counts as something of a minor triumph for the makers of “Solo: A Star Wars Story”, given how relentlessly negative most of the pre- and even post-release narrative has been.

Pre-release, the original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were famously fired halfway through the production and the stalwart, staid Ron Howard brought in to reportedly reshoot 70% of the movie. Han Solo actor Alden Ehrenreich was apparently so unimpressive that a coach was hired to put some smug in his smuggler. 

I’ve only just seen this because it was only released here June 29. Frankly, Japan’s decision to delay the release of the movie a full month after the rest of the civilized world (previous Disney movies have come out within a week of the US premier) should have been seen for what it was: a massive vote of no-confidence in the success of this movie. That lack of confidence seems to have been well-founded.

Post-release, the box office results have been less than stellar, as the franchise has been brought firmly down to earth. As I write this, boxofficemojo.com reports that worldwide, the movie has made just shy of $370m, which doesn’t sound bad until you realize it’s about one-third what the next lowest-grossing of the Disney movies, Rogue One, made during its run. Reshoots are reckoned to have blasted the movie’s production budget up to $250m, so when you add in marketing and subtract the theater chains’ take, means the movie will likely lose money on its theatrical run. 

Pundits (well, okay, Internet idiots like me, really) have been quick to suggest reasons for the lack of interest—its release came too hard on the heels of Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2, it came too soon after The Last Jedi (TLJ), it didn’t feel ‘necessary’, audiences are rebelling against the controversy of TLJ and boycotting the movie.

Let me offer another possible reason: It isn’t that good.

It isn’t that bad either, but the best I can offer is that it isn’t the utter shitshow that was promised.

OH, STUFF THE LORE

We open on Corellia, a world of Victorian steel mills and Dickensian child labor, where a young Han (Ehrenreich) dreams of escape with his squeeze, Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame). The two make a break in a spectacularly dull car chase, and reach the spaceport where they find every memorable moment from the previous Star Wars movies, cut up, stuck in a blender and regurgitated onto the script page at every possible opportunity: Stormtroopers tell people to “Move along,” a recruiting video plays the Imperial March theme, and so on.

Indeed, this movie half feels like an answer to all the obsessives who cried about TLJ’s being unfaithful to the ‘lore’ of Star Wars, designed to stimulate that pathetic need to feel you’re the smartest person in the movie theater. So, so many eye-rolling shout-outs: Tracking devices on the Falcon, the holo-chess table, Teras Kasi from a two decades-old Playstation game, a suit of Mandalorian armor in the background in one scene. Because for too many out there, this seems to now be a substitute for things like engaging characters or an interesting plot.

Ah yes, the plot. Right.

Han escapes Corellia although Qi’ra doesn’t. Han joins the Imperial army, then deserts, joins up with a smuggler and con-man named Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) in a series of escalating heists designed to buy off Crimson Dawn crime syndicate boss Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany). Here, he is reunited with Qi’ra, who has become either Vos’s sex-slave (Vos is creepily and physically controlling of her, and her face falls as soon as he enters the room) and/or lieutenant (she’s a deadly martial artist and Vos sends her with Han to ensure he honors his end of the deal), I’m not really clear which—and I suspect the movie isn’t either. It all culminates in the Kessel Run, made famous in the original Star Wars thanks to an offhand remark Harrison Ford’s Han Solo makes to Luke and Obi-wan.

I was struck how this feels like a movie in search of a purpose or goal, kind of flitting from one scene to the next, dutifully ticking off boxes on the back story that we already know about Han Solo—gets a nickname, tick, meets Chewbacca, tick, gets his blaster, tick, does the Kessel Run, tick, wins the Millennium Falcon in a card game, tick. Shoots first, tick.

Any time the movie appears in danger of going in a new or interesting direction and showing you something you’ve never seen in a Star Wars movie before, it’s immediately reigned in and we skip ahead to the next scene. There is a very, very brief sequence, for example, where Han is thrust in the middle of a sort of World War I-style battle, filled with terrifyingly confusing explosions and smoke, and you think, ah now we’ll see how he grows to hate the Empire through this senseless war.

But nope. Next scene he’s plotting mutiny and escaping with Chewie. I think it was always going to be hard to make an interesting Han Solo prequel (or the Boba Fett and Obi-wan prequels which may or may not be in planning), but seeing the Empire from the inside might have been an interesting twist, focusing less on what we already know about Han and more on what we don’t know, or more on the mechanism of evil, and how the free soul rebels against tyranny. 

Sorry fellas. This movie has boxes to tick.

As a result, each scene and plot point feels thin and stretched out, like an idea spread over too much running time:

“We must escape,” says Han. A minute later, they do.

“I should join the Imperial army,” thinks Han. A minute and a brain-hurtlingly stupid nickname later, he does.

I think it’s symptomatic of this kind of approach of stitching plot points mechanically together that two scenes end with characters walking off in some random direction, despite being in the middle of icy/sandy wastes. It’s very meta, as if the characters just decided to literally walk across the pages of the script to the next scene. You ain’t got no spaceship buddy, where the hell you think you’re walking to?

A SMALL MOVIE

The locations, both interior and ex, feel oddly cramped and soundstage-y. The spice mines of Kessel, for example, look like they could comfortably fit into a suburban back yard. The cinematography is very dimly-lit for about the first third, punctuated by Pokemon-seizure inducing blast of brilliant light. There’s little of the visual flair that made TLJ enjoyable despite its potty plotting, save for perhaps the aforementioned battle scene and one more where we follow Han up the ramp and into the Falcon in the middle of a firefight. Should-be-crowd-pleasing sequences like the initial car chase or the flight through the Kessel Run are instead just kind of leaden and lifeless. The music keeps swelling and telling me something dramatic is going on, but I’m not buying it: Chewbacca sitting in the Falcon’s co-pilot seat, for example, is not in and of itself dramatic. It’s a totally unearned moment, that acquires significance only with knowledge of the Star Wars series. Otherwise, it’s just this big furry ape sitting in a chair.

As Han, Ehrenreich is fine, I guess, aside from one scene where he takes the Falcon’s controls and does the I’m-obviously-not-driving-this waggling the steering wheel from side to side bit. There’s one or two scenes where he shows the thin veneer of bravado over someone unsure of themselves, but there’s too little of this. I don’t especially buy him as the future Han Solo we met in the original trilogy, since he seems to lack any hint of selfishness or cynicism.

Clarke similarly lacks the hint of depth and menace her role seems to call for, as someone who has had to be ruthless in order to survive inside a criminal organization run by an unstable, paranoid narcissist. Indeed, the movie seems uninterested in Qi’ra as anything other than a motivator for Han, which makes her climactic betrayal at the end of the movie far less impactful that it might have been otherwise—despite the fact that her arc seems much more interesting than Han’s.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge has one enjoyable scene as L3, a navigation droid infatuated with Han’s frenemy Lando (Donald Glover), but her ‘droids’ rights’ shtick humor falls flat, coming off as ill-timed mockery of equal rights movements. Even the stunt casting of Donald Glover as Lando didn’t do much for me—though I know other reviewers loved him—I can’t help but suspect his accolades have more to do with the goodwill he’s already garnered from his music and previous acting than with his performance here.

DIRECTIONLESS

I think the common thread between the sketchy plot and sketchy characters is the lack of a clear goal or direction for the characters.

You could do a movie about plot, but here there are three or four, raised and discarded in quick succession. In the good Star Wars movies, the heroes had something they want to accomplish, a goal, an objective. Steal the plans and blow up the Death Star. Become a Jedi knight. There’s none of that here. Han wants to earn enough money to buy his own ship and return to rescue Qi’ra from Cor—oh no wait, there she is. He wants to do a heist to pay off a gang lord—ah, no, he’s decided not to. There’s nothing left to connect you to the main character, a vague sense he wants a ship and independence, but there’s nothing really established onscreen in the movie.

Alternatively, you could do a movie about character, but the titular loner ends the movie much the same as he began it, and we grow no closer to understanding what makes him tick. He says he’s a selfish guy, others say he’s basically good, but there’s no evidence either way. Han is just kind of blown by the plot, exercising little agency at any stage of the story. His friendship with Chewie is paint-by-numbers and established in a single scene, in keeping with this movie’s impatience to cover all the required ground. Qi’ra is another potentially interesting character, but relegated to the background—this movie could have taken a lesson from Mad Max: Fury Road and realized the viewpoint character doesn’t always have to be the center of the action.

So instead we’re left with a kind of rote retelling of what we already know about Han Solo, with no alarms and no surprises, while the hero himself becomes a kind of muddled blur, his only motivation being to hit the required plot points and move the story forward. If the plot points themselves were more fun, we might not notice the boring characters and haphazard execution. It’s not actively, malevolently bad, it’s just a bit dull, lifeless and predictable, content with doing what is safe and expected rather than challenging the imagination of the audience in any way.

Star Wars: The Last Review

Title: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Director: Rian Johnson
Screenplay: Rian Johnson

Well, the movie's been out for almost a week, a period in which everyone who was going to see it has doubtless seen it multiple times and everyone who WASN'T going to see it has already explained how they're not really into Star Wars presumably because they hate fun, adventure and excitement, the bastards. Which of course means that, thanks to my impeccable, nay immaculate, sense of timing, it is time for me to provide the review that everybody, literally everybody, hasn't been waiting for. 

I feel a bit sorry for movies these days, swimming in an amniotic fluid of rumour, conjecture and leaks even before they've been pushed grunting into theatres, but then all the major names involved make multimillion dollar salaries, so fuck 'em. That's the movie business now, suckers.

So, a little bit divisive, hey? On Rotten Tomatoes, 93% positive from the critics but only 55% from site users. On Metacritic, 86 metascore, but only a 4.8 user score. Are reviews being carpet-bombed by irate fans and trolls? Are critics too scared of the Mouse to risk giving a negative review?

In a word: Yes.

I mean, it's good fun. It looks absolutely stunning, most of the time. The opening bombing run should be risible, with bombs falling down despite the zero-g and crewmembers surviving nicely without spacesuits, but is so expertly cut and framed it has you on the edge of your seat right from the get-go. There's a crimson throne-room fight that is all about fucking cool lightsaber moves, easily the best fight choreography since Darth Maul did his thing. There's a sudden cut to silence, in a monochromatic hyperspace kamikaze attack that is just jaw-droppingly phenomenal. A planet that bleeds red as the two sides battle across it. Imperial--sorry First Order, whatever--walkers hulking like Egyptian statuary against the skyline.

Oh, but the plot. Alas, the plot. Caught between the original trilogy and a new generation of movies, overstuffed with characters with too little to do even in the bloated 150 minute running time. Overburdened with expectations, too, all the mysteries JJ Abrams presented in The Force Awakens, apparently without bothering to have the slightest fucking clue how he was going to resolve any of them. And it shows, good lord, it shows.

There's a lot of talk of taking the Star Wars universe in a bold new direction, but let's acknowledge that it does so by almost immediately throwing over its shoulder every plot line left dangling from Episode 8. Who is Snoke? Who cares. Who are Rey's parents? Eh, just some guys. What's Luke doing at the Jedi Temple? Um, not much. Drinking space giraffe milk straight from the tit, mainly.

As a stand-alone movie, a lot of this would work fine. As the second movie in a trilogy, it just exposes the fiction of the emperor's new clothes. There is no trilogy, there's just a bunch of movies created so Disney can make back the money it spent on Lucasfilm. (Yes, yes, all movies are made to make money, but usually they also have the tiniest morsel of artistic merit to them, some message they wish to impart upon the world. Here? No.)

Some of the ideas are good, great even. There's a moment of tension when Kylo and Rey finally meet, and he urges her to forget the past. Jedi, Sith, it doesn't matter. That's a great direction to go--maybe the only direction, if the series doesn't want to mire itself in a hamster wheel of successive dark lords getting their laser-sword comeuppance from feisty youngsters, forever and ever, like infinite reflections repeating in facing mirrors--but then the movie immediately backs off by having the two revert to good/bad stereotypes.

The idea that anyone can be a hero, that it's who you are, not where you came from, is one I really, really like. It's the anti-Marvel effect: Evil is not defeated by the Chosen One or superheroes, but by ordinary people finally saying "enough is enough." That's a powerful and important message. That's weary cop John McClane saying "Yippe kai-yay, motherfucker." That's Ripley telling the Alien Queen to get away from her, bitch. That's fat gardener Sam Gamgee stabbing a 12-foot spider that tried to hurt his friend. But, oh but, it's a message that gets largely lost in a barrage of time-wasting silliness and too-close-to-home political posturing.

Which brings us to the parts of the movie that are just indefensible. A ropey CGI chase scene, punctuated by a stuttering bit-part character in service of a subplot that goes nowhere and achieves nothing. A plot device straight from the age of sailing ships, overseen by characters whose only role is not to tell each other things and then die heroically. A walk-on by returning character Captain Phasma that only serves to highlight how manipulative and pointless her return was. A finale that seems to go on and on before abruptly ending, leaving no clear way forward for the next Episode.

Like I said, it's really a stand-alone movie, not part of a trilogy.

But you know, despite all that, I still quite enjoyed it. I mean, it is AMAZING to look at. Whether I'll still think so if I try to watch it again is a question for another day.