Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Disney, 12.15) is a tip-top thing in many respects, a nicely baked, smoothly assembled serving of corporate-brand entertainment that millions upon millions of Star Wars nerds and American families are going to lap up like starving puppy dogs. It’s not a bad film, fast and fleet and well-layered and handsome … Read more
I don’t know that Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Disney, 12.15) is even going to approach the occasionally haunting, vise-grip efficiency of The Empire Strikes Back, but if any of the three 21st Century Star Wars sequels have a chance of being this kind of “holy shit” restoration of faith, The Last Jedi, being the … Read more
How did Luke Skywalker, whose voice was so chirpy and Tom Sawyer-ish when young, manage to grow this raspy, grizzled sound without drinking Jack Daniels and smoking unfiltered Gitanes for 40 years? I think I’m done with Skellig Michael, no offense — too many shots of those green craggy cliffs. Rey and Luke in training. … Read more
Last Friday David Poland posted a piece about five major irritants in Stars Wars: The Force Awakens — 1. The Giant Supreme Leader Snoke; 2. Fake-out deaths; 3. Anyone can use a light saber; 4. Those Kylo Ren destruction tantrums; and 5. Why does Kylo Ren have the mask? For me the lightsaber complaint strikes … Read more
In the old days epic movies had a standardized accent system — American accents for the good guys, cultured British or mid-Atlantic accents for the bad guys. This was how it worked in many ’50s and ’60s sword-and-sandal epics (Spartacus being one, except when it came to John Gavin‘s Julius Caesar). It was also how … Read more
Adam Driver‘s Kylo Ren knows exactly who he is and what he intends to do. But the good guys aren’t so sure. They got nothin’, ma, to live up to…but then it gradually comes to them. Clarity, purpose. At the very beginning an older woman’s voice says “who are you?,” and Daisy Ridley‘s Rey says … Read more
This is basically nothing apart from that one Leni Reifenstahl shot of rows and rows of troops, which of course is a steal from the final scene of Episode 4. And that shot of some red-tinted helmet dude going “stop” like he’s a traffic cop in a ballet? That’s no good, man. Seen this before, … Read more
About five months ago the Stars Wars 7: The Force Awakens actor/characters were identified via Topp-style trading cards provided to Entertainment Weekly by J.J. Abrams and Co., and one of them was Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, which I described as “the black-cloaked bad guy in the snow-covered forest with the light saber“…duhh. In yesterday’s … Read more