written and directed by Rian Johnson
Over forty years after the release of the very first Star Wars, Disney/Lucasfilm releases the ninth film in the series, the highly-awaited The Last Jedi. It is, in many respects, a conspicuous improvement over its predecessor, though it's still not quite the best the franchise has ever offered.
Following the events of The Force Awakens, the First Order, led by the sinister Snoke (Andy Serkis), having laid waste to the leadership of the Old Republic, now seeks to wipe out the last vestiges of the Resistance, being led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Spearheading Snokes' efforts to snuff out all resistance are General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) and former Jedi-in-training Kylo Ren, a.k.a. Ben Solo (Adam Driver) who, as the film opens, are bearing down on the last remaining Resistance fleet as it evacuates its headquarters. The fleet escapes, but only momentarily, and at terrible cost. Leia finds herself having to deal with her ace pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), whose skill in the cockpit is matched only by how brash he is, a trait that could spell the difference between successfully escaping the clutches of the First Order and getting completely annihilated. Meanwhile, fellow Resistance fighter Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on a mission to the distant plant of Ach-to, where she attempts to recruit the last remaining Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to help the Resistance, and learn more about her mysterious past. Finally, former First Order Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) wakes up from the coma he fell into in the last movie, and tries to desert what he feels is a doomed Resistance, but fate has other plans as Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) a mechanic and the sister of a fallen Resistance fighter, stops him in his tracks by tasering him. In the ensuing conversation, he and Rose figure out how the First Order is able to track the Resistance, and devise a plan that involves finding a codebreaker (Benicio del Toro) on an intergalactic Monte Carlo and then sneaking onto Snokes' very own destroyer. Finally, Rey and Ren, mysteriously, develop a telepathic bond that enables them to communicate directly, even though great distance separates them, and this just may spell the difference between the Resistance falling to the First Order, or defeating it.
I'll readily admit that, while I enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I was one of the many who felt that J.J. Abrams' film was, for all intents and purposes, a remake of the very first Star Wars movie, now called Episode IV: A New Hope. While it was, of course, a sequel, it was so hamstrung by Abrams' desire to show proper reverence to the original trilogy that it failed to bring anything truly new and fresh to the mythology. Rian Johnson's film is far from perfect, but quite significantly, it suggests that Lucasfilm has both learned from Abrams' mistakes as well as from the success of last year's spinoff film Rogue One: A Star Wars story.
For one thing, Johnson isn't afraid to take a movie that could have just as easily been The Empire Strikes Back, Mark II and instead go in a significantly different direction. I don't dare say more for fear of spoiling anything (and I'll have a separate post to discuss that). For better or worse, Johnson really puts his stamp on these characters, especially the newer ones like Rey, Ben Solo, Finn and Poe Dameron. He continues the threads that Abrams began, and enriches them significantly, at least in the case of Rey and Ben. Finn gets his own dedicated story arc, one that introduces a sort of love interest for him, and delves into his past as a stormtrooper, with a fairly satisfying payoff, even if the subplot does feel a little bloated. Dameron has a bit of an arc himself, one that brings him in direct conflict with General Organa and her subordinate Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) but while it has its interesting moments of tension, it still feels distinctly underwritten. Rey and Ben/Ren get the most character development, which is a welcome thing, considering how sparsely Abrams wrote their characters when he introduced them. Kylo Ren benefits the most; he gets a notable upgrade from the petulant Darth Vader wannabe he was in the first film of the new trilogy, which bodes well for the next (and last) film of this particular saga.
More importantly, however, Johnson avoids the one big mistake Abrams made in The Force Awakens, which was to give the old characters short shrift. Abrams royally screwed Han Solo, and I don't even mean by killing him. Abrams basically transplanted the Han Solo of the original trilogy into a new movie. Sure, he had white hair, wrinkles, and a lot of regrets, but he was still dodging people he'd outfoxed/swindled and basically acting like the guy that Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker ran into in the very first movie. And honestly, Han died like a punk, something hardly befitting a character who is arguably the most popular hero of the original trilogy.
Luke Skywalker, who comes to prominence in this film, is another story. Johnson takes the fact that Kylo Ren was a product of Luke's training and absolutely runs with it. Luke isn't just a little older and grayer; the events of the last thirty years, especially the events that led to Ben Solo joining the First Order, have left him a profoundly changed man, and while it's easy to poke fun at the whole grumpy old man shtick Hamill puts on for much of his screen time, there's so much more to him than that, and it's evident not only from Johnson's script but from Hamill's acting. Yes, Star Wars fans, Mark Hamill, who managed to stain the entire franchise's most iconic scene with some awful line delivery ("Nooooo!!! That's not true!!! That's IMPOSSIBLE!!!") actually manages to ACT here. He doesn't exactly turn into Daniel Day-Lewis, but it is a remarkable step up from what we've seen before from him. And unlike Han, he gets a fantastic "hero" moment in the movie, as well as a stirring callback to one of the most iconic sequences of the first film which involved a sunset and a swelling John Williams score. THAT, Mr. Abrams, is how you do a proper hommage, not the copycat BS you sold us two years ago.
Speaking of John Williams, I was pleased to note that, whereas in The Force Awakens his music just felt like generic white noise, here he seems to have rediscovered what makes composing for these films so special; he doesn't just lean on the decades-old themes here but brings some new, if slightly familiar-sounding tunes to spice up the story.
I feel it's worth mentioning this film's astonishing production value; even though it should be a given, and even though the last two films under the Disney banner have both been very well-put-together, I'd like to acknowledge, having failed to do so before, how this new series of films really puts premium on things like location shoots and practical effects as opposed to George Lucas' CGI-infested clusterf**ks.
Ultimately, the film could have been trimmed a little bit, but as a narrative, it works quite well for the most part, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it just as much as I did Rogue One.
8.5/10
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