Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) - Film Review
Starring: Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega & Carrie Fisher
Screenplay: Rian Johnson
Directed By: Rian Johnson
Certificate: 12
Two
years on from The
Force Awakens and
now we finally have the much-anticipated follow-up, Star
Wars: The Last Jedi.
While fans were kept busy during the two-year gap with the anthology
film Rogue
One
(which, at the time of writing, is a film that I still need to catch up
on), it's now time to continue pushing the Star
Wars
series forward with the sequel trilogy. While reception to The
Last Jedi has
been mainly positive, especially from film critics, I was surprised
to see just how divisive it had been with fans. Whilst not quite at
the same ridiculous scale, the divide is scarily beginning to remind
me of last year's Ghostbusters
reboot.
Given some of the things I'll be getting on to in this review, I also
want to quickly clarify that unlike a lot of people, I don't have a
massively strong bond to the Star
Wars franchise.
Unlike something like Doctor
Who,
I don't exactly have Star
Wars running
through my veins, but am I instead a bit more of a casual fan. So
with that out of the way, how did The
Last Jedi fare
from this slight outsiders' perspective?
Shortly
after the events of The Force Awakens, the Resistance,
led by General Leia, are forced to flee through hyperspace to escape
a First Order attack fleet. However, the Resistance are being tracked
and pursued, unable to keep on the run for much longer. Their only
hope if they are to escape relies on Finn, and fellow resistance
worker Rose, and whether they can find an underworld codebreaker,
known only as DJ in the city of Canto Bight. Meanwhile, Rey has found
a self-exiled Luke Skywalker on the remote and isolated planet
Ahch-To. Yet despite the threat faced by the Resistance, Luke refuses
to return and fight the First Order. Rey must find a way of
convincing Luke to end his exile and to train her in the ways of the
Jedi.
Going
into The Last Jedi, the biggest improvement I was
hoping to see from it concerned a little matter called originality.
As much as I loved The Force Awakens, and as much as it
is still genuinely one of my favourite Star Wars films,
if there's one area it could improve on it would be the ability to
stand without relying on the bulk of the past films. While I get that
this was partly done to win over fans left bitter by the prequels,
with The Last Jedi, something had to change and it had
to stop relying on the franchise's history quite so much. However,
the initial trailers left me a little uncertain by how similar they
felt to The Empire Strikes Back. So when I actually got
to watch The Last Jedi, I was really happy to find that
it was much more capable of standing on its own two feet compared to
its predecessor. Director Rian Johnson offers a lot more originality
that J.J. Abrams provided, and he was really able to surprise me with
this film. You may well have been expecting certain answers to
questions that were posed in the last film, or for The Last
Jedi to go in certain ways, yet it doesn't. It subverts what
you expect, and as far as I'm concerned, what it offers instead is
precisely why I enjoyed it. Yes, it's not entirely original but I
never expected it to be, and it does borrow some imagery
and plot points from The Empire Strikes Back. There's
epic space battles on wintry-looking planets, a Jedi master having to
train a student in a remote location, that student experiencing a
surreal vision in a cave, dismissing the advice of their master and
making rash decisions as a result. These are just a few similarities,
and there are almost definitely more parallels to be found. However,
because The Last Jedi brings enough new content to the
table, I've no problem with this. Compared to nearly all the Star
Wars film that've come before this, there's something about
this one that just feels different. I can't quite pin down what this
is exactly, but it feels more personal to the characters, and it
definitely spends more time giving further development to both old
and new characters.
One
character that everyone was hyped for was Luke Skywalker, and his
return to the series ... yet what this film does with his character
appears to have split opinion. The Last Jedi presents
to us a very different Luke, one turned colder, both literally and
psychologically isolated from others. Now some people have expressed
anger at this, as the Luke they know would never behave like this and
do some of the things he's shown to do in this film. Are you kidding
me? More than thirty years have passed since we last saw Luke in
Return Of The Jedi! People change! Heck, I like to
think my own appearance and mindset have changed in the past two
years, let alone thirty! I can't think of a single
out-of-character action from Luke anywhere in this film, and the fact
that he has changed so much feels a hell of a lot more natural to me
than if he were still the exact same character we saw last time. Mark
Hamill gives one of his best performances to date, and before I
watched The Last Jedi, I'd forgotten how great an actor
he really is. It's nice to see Luke playing a key role in a Star
Wars film again, and in fact there are a few characters who
get much bigger roles than I was expecting. The late great Carrie
Fisher gets a much more significant role here as General Leia than
she did in The Force Awakens, and considering this is
the last we'll get to see of her character, it's great to see Leia
given so much to do. I'm not really sure how they'll take Leia out of
the next film's story, but be rest assured that here and now, The
Last Jedi is a worthy tribute to Carrie Fisher. Newer
characters get more to do this time as well, such as Poe Dameron.
Rather than just being told how skilled a pilot he is, this time we
actually get to see it a bit more in numerous aerial fight scenes.
His hot-headed nature also comes to the forefront when he has to work
with a new resistance leader, Admiral Holdo. (Spoiler Warning!)
At first it seems like Holdo has the resistance following a passive
plan that will ultimately lead to their destruction, and it's Poe
that will have to save them by going rogue. However, the rug is once
again pulled out from under our feet when it turns out Holdo's plan
works, and it's Poe who would have failed. It's a small detail, but
it's yet another way that Rian Johnson was able to surprise me with
The Last Jedi. Even Captain Phasma, who's fast becoming
the new trilogy's equivalent of Boba Fett, gets a dramatic,
entertaining showdown with Finn.
The
performances from the cast across the board are strong, and there's
isn't really a single weak link to be found. Adam Driver continues to
impress as Kylo Ren, a character who's now up there in my estimation
as one of my favourite movie villains. While I was a little
disheartened that they got rid of Kylo's mask (simply because he
looks and sounds fantastic in it), the performance, his own personal
conflict, and just how well his rage and fury came across were more
than enough to make up for it. Daisy Ridley continues to leave an
impression as Rey, and it was interesting to see her own conflict
throughout the film. (Spoiler Warning!) Her decision to leave
Luke in the hopes of redeeming Kylo may look short-sighted and
ill-judged, but it does confirm to the audience that there's good in
her and her desire to see people redeemed rather than destroyed.
Meanwhile, John Boyega continues to shine in his breakout role as
Finn, giving another ground, realistic performance, while Domhnall
Gleeson channels the First Order's anger really well, whilst also
simultaneously getting some of the biggest laughs of the film.
Carrying on the trend set by the last film, The Last Jedi also
gives us one or two newcomers, most notably Kelly Marie Tran as Rose,
who works really well with John Boyega and remains dedicated in her
performance despite some slightly out of place scenes towards the end
of the film.
All
of this brilliant acting talent get an equally brilliant director to
work with, and as I've said multiple times already, Rian Johnson does
an incredible job with this film. As I've pretty much come to expect
with nearly any Star Wars film, it looks stunning, and
I'm so glad that this was one of those very rare films I got to
experience at a cinema before the home media release. The aerial
fight scenes, lightsaber duels and alien landscapes, particularly
Ahch-To, all look amazing, and a lot of clear care and attention has
gone into this film's production. There are a few unique touches to
be found in the smaller details too, such as the use of colour. The
use of the colour red in The Last Jedi really stood out
to me, especially the guards and the backdrop on Snoke's ship.
(Spoiler Warning!) There's also the red footprints and dust
clouds left by disrupting the salty surface of the planet Crait, and
the small bit of attention to detail in not having Luke's Force
projection leave red footprints behind, is really nice to see on a
second viewing.
As
much as I thoroughly loved The Force Awakens, I'll
happily admit that I found The Last Jedi to be a
definite improvement. One of the reasons for this is that while my
few problems with The Force Awakens could be boiled
down into a single issue: a lack of originality, with The Last
Jedi, I don't really have one big over-arching problem to
talk about. However, this isn't to say The Last Jedi is
a full-marks masterpiece, as there are several smaller things that
could have perhaps been improved upon. Something that has
faced criticism is Rose and Finn's visit to the casino city on Canto
Bight. While the time spent here does serve up some much-welcomed
character development, as well as some nice social, political
commentary, I'll agree that it does take up a bit too much of the
runtime. At more than two and a half hours long, The Last Jedi
is already the longest Star Wars film to date,
yet it doesn't justify being quite that long when sequences like Canto
Bight take up so much time despite doing little to push the story
forward. (Spoiler Warning!) Another more brief yet
questionable scene sees Leia using the Force to save herself from
being blown out into space. While I've no problem with this on paper,
the way it's presented does feel quite strange, and given that the
way Leia saves herself barely gets mentioned again, it feels like it
could probably been cut. Before the film was released, there was also
a bit of mystery surrounding a character called DJ, played by Benicio
Del Toro. However, DJ is honestly one of the most forgettable aspects
of The Last Jedi. With the role that he plays in this
film, it feels like he should be a whole lot more memorable, but I
really have zero interest in this character. We also have the very
last scene of the film, where we make a brief return to Canto Bight
and to one of the children who helped Finn and Rose. I'm not sure if the filmmakers are planning
to return to him at any point in the next film, but this reappearance
right at the very end, and the lack of context or explanation for it
had me and the couple of friends I was watching this with in the cinema
left very dumbfounded.
While
these are the only (relatively minor) problems I have with The Last
Jedi, there's no escaping the fact that some fans of the
series have stirred up a s***storm of criticism around it ... yet I
really don't see why. There are a minority of fans complaining that
the film is too liberal, and I've seen video rants from people
moaning that either “SJWs” or Disney have “ruined” Star
Wars. To be honest, I'm really just done with responding to
complaints like this because they're not even worth the time of day
and I'm frankly just sick of it. If your personal politics reflects
that of space Nazis, then the problem is your own, not the film's and
I don't understand how you've been a fan of a franchise as
open-minded as Star Wars for such a long time. The rest
of the criticism aimed at The Last Jedi has bit more of
a leg to stand on, yet many of the criticisms that I've
heard seem relatively inconsequential to me. (Spoiler Warning!)
First of all we have Snoke – several have complained that
Snoke's use and eventual fate proved underwhelming after his
appearance in the last film. Now if I'm perfectly honest, Snoke never
really interested me and I never learnt enough about him in The
Force Awakens to be hooked into any sense of mystery, so much
so that I didn't mention him once in my Force Awakens review.
I had no interest in devising theories as to who he is, so the fact he
never really amounts to anything significant didn't bother me that
much. Other complaints aimed at the revelation about Rey's parents,
and the fact that they weren't anyone important or that we were
already familiar with. Here we see another example of people being
disappointed because the theories they'd devised and were so certain
of weren't correct. We don't even know for certain if Kylo was
telling the truth about Rey's parents being “no-one”, but if that
is true, I have no problem with it. How about being more interested
in the character herself? Maybe I'm just not a big enough fan, but it
looks to me that The Last Jedi is only such an “insult”
to some more devoted Star Wars fans because of
nitpicking and the fact that it dared to subvert expectations in
favour of going somewhere different.
It
has genuinely surprised me at how much I've
had to defend Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
I'm not even a particularly huge Star Wars
fan, and even I can see that a lot of the hate this film has
attracted isn't deserved. To me, The Last Jedi felt
like a film about respecting yet letting go of the past and facing
the future, and in a time where so many long-running franchises are
caught up in a wave of nostalgia, I really respect that. I've no
problem with nostalgia and enjoying the glories of the past, but as
The Force Awakens
proved, there has to be a balance between looking back and pushing
forwards in new directions. Yet it seems that a lot of people aren't
ready to accept the changing and moving forwards part, which is a
real shame. For me The Last Jedi was
a fantastic improvement and the best of the main series films that
I've seen since The Empire Strikes Back.
Approach this film with an open mind, respect and appreciate the past
films, and look forward to new innovations, and I see no real reason
why you shouldn't be able to enjoy The Last Jedi.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
9/10