Movie Review: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’
‘The Last Jedi’ changes the trajectory of the franchise in unexpected ways
Quick disclaimer: There are some spoilers in this review, if I’ve actually remembered the movie correctly.
Hot takes abound concerning Rian Johnson’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and now the internet’s pastures are green and plentiful with them. Takes ranging from this is the best Star Wars movie since “The Empire Strikes Back” to its worst since “Attack of the Clones,” and that was pretty bad. It’s not hard to see why people would have such a visceral reaction; this movie constantly subverts your expectations of what it should be.
It’s only been two years since the release of JJ Abrams’s “The Force Awakens.” Since then we’ve only been able to speculate on some of the big important questions that movie left us with: Who are Rey’s parents exactly? What happened between Kylo Ren and his uncle, Luke Skywalker? Why is Luke hanging out on that porg-infested island? And Supreme Leader Snoke, what’s up with that guy, seriously? Well, we finally get answers. They’re just not the answers that we’ve been left to fill the internet and our imaginations with. Maybe that’s why some are upset? I’m not entirely sure, but as Yoda would say, “Clear your mind of questions.” You’d be better served by enjoying this movie for what it is: a character-driven, future-oriented, and surprisingly funny film with rousing action.
The movie starts with a bang — full of heroism, sacrifice, and insubordination. The hot shot X-wing pilot, Commander Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), tries to take on a First Order armada of ships by himself. He’s first to cover the evacuation of his fellow Resistance’s forces but then disobeys direct orders in an attempt to destroy a First Order’s Dreadnought (a really big-mother of a spaceship). For all his successful but risky efforts, he gets slapped around, literally, then demoted by General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher) because all of his showboating ultimately ended up costing precious lives and needed equipment.
Rey (Daisy Ridley) has made her way to the hidden planet, the Jedi island retreat of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Skywalker isn’t all that happy about having company. He’s left the fight to save the galaxy after suffering the disappointment of his failed attempt to resurrect the Jedi. He’s a surly old man now, yet content to live his life alone, milking a strange looking sea creature, being looked after by judgy amphibian-looking nuns, and fishing for his dinner with one ginormous spear. Rey is there looking for a way to convince him to return to the Resistance and hoping that we will train her in the ways of the Force. Again, Luke is having none of it.
Finn (John Boyega) awakes from his injuries sustained in “The Force Awakens” only to find his friend Rey gone. Then he decides that he needs to high-tail it off the Resistance ship to go find her only to be thwarted in his attempt at desertion by a new addition to the cast, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). When Finn finds Rose, she’s grieving for the loss of her sister, who sacrificed herself on the bombing run that destroyed the Dreadnought. Rose is a true believer in the cause; Finn still has his doubts.
Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) is none to happy with his apprentice, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), due to the events of “The Force Awakens.” After killing his own father, Han Solo, Kylo Ren was left shaken and then was easily defeated by Rey, an untrained fighter but powerful in the Force. In his audience, Snoke proceeds to taunt Kylo Ren by invoking the name of his grandfather, Darth Vader, and chides him to put aside childish things such as his helmet, which is evocative of Vader’s.
It eventually becomes a race against time for all involved. The Resistance fleet is unable to outrun the First Order and they are short on supplies and hope. Much like “The Empire Strikes Back” before it, our heroes are drawn apart by separate missions for most of the movie, sometimes to its detriment. Finn and his new companion Rose are off to find a “slicer,” a Star Wars term for hacker, which might help them slip past the First Order. They end-up on the Monte Carlo-like world of Canto Bight where the distinctions between the haves and have-nots are stark. They find their “slicer” man, a mysterious and twitchy man known only as DJ (Benicio Del Toro), in a roundabout way. Poe stays behind attempting in every way he knows how to save the fleet, including a possible mutiny, only to run-up against another, “The Last Jedi” newcomer, Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern).
Rey’s still having a hard time convincing Luke to get back into the Jedi Master game. Only when he is reunited with his old friend R2-D2 who, with a nice call back to the original trilogy, finally convinces Luke to start training Rey. Her training is fraught with the same perils that Luke faced in his — a call to the dark side and an fateful encounter in a cave. Luke increasingly is frightened by her “raw” strength with force, a strength that mirrors his old pupil Kylo Ren. There are hints of shared connection between the two, Rey and Ren, that goes beyond just their teacher. Perhaps they are both bound together by ability and fate.
The finale contains some of the most exhilarating and most controversial elements of the movie. When I say exhilarating, it’s not a term that I’m using lightly. The end of this movie contains some of the most memorable moments that I can recall in modern Blockbuster movie fare. Some of these moments include controversial ones, but they are all spectacular and earned from a narrative perspective. Could I be more effusive in my praise? You know what I probably could, but I’ll spare everyone my ramblings. If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably heard enough of them.
Again, this ending has everything we could have ever wanted. In fact, so much so that I’d question whether Director Rian Johnson left anything for them to do in the forthcoming Episode IX. We get a couple of showdowns we’ve been waiting on since “The Force Awakens.” An all-out ground assault that is evocative of the snowspeeder battle at the beginning of “The Empire Strike Back,” but this time it’s tinged mineral red instead of snow white.
The performances are good across the board with a couple of shoutouts to newcomer Kelly Marie Tran and the returning Mark Hamill. To me the only exception might be that of John Boyega, who is seemly a little off his game, probably missing his “The Force Awakens” partner Daisy Ridley to play off of. The standout performer, by far, of this movie is Adam Driver. He makes Kylo Ren as much of a fully-developed, complex character and villain as you’ll ever find in any of these other big-budget universe of franchise movies.
“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to,” is what Kylo Ren tells Rey to do at one point in “The Last Jedi.” Well, this must have been taken as personal mission statement by Writer-director Rian Johnson for this movie. He is reverent to the past of Star Wars but not beholden to it, leaving nothing on the table from either a visual or story standpoint. While he draws on elements from “The Empire Strikes Back” and even “Return of the Jedi,” it’s not the full on pastiche that Abrams’s “The Force Awakens” was. He crafts a story that is wholly his own, and even though we might not get the answers that we like to those aforementioned big important questions, we do get the right answers.
