‘The Last Jedi’ is a fine chapter in the Star Wars sagaDate: 12/21/2017 What I’m watching: a new blockbuster, a film that was supposed to be a blockbuster and a blockbuster of sorts from 1940.
In theaters: The Last Jedi
As someone who went to the first “Stars Wars” movie on its opening weekend many, many years ago and who has watched every film since, I can say that not all “Star Wars” films are created equal. The three films that served as Darth Vader’s origin story, for example, were depressing and unnecessary – that story could have been told in one film.
So I went into viewing this newest chapter with no expectations and with as little knowledge about it as possible and I came away quite pleased.
The actions picks up immediately after the close of the last film with Rey (Daisy Ridley) asking Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to train her, while her friends in the Resistance are trying to evade the First Order, which is determined to exterminate all of the rebels.
The communication between Rey and Kylo Ren (Adam Drive) continues with both of them struggling to learn about themselves and The Force.
The “Star Wars” saga is simply the most expensive and popular movie serial ever made and if you go into it expecting social messages, contemplative examinations of possible futures or anything you get from literary science fiction you would be disappointed. This is an adventure film with good guys and bad guys and themes from Westerns such as the journey to redemption and the struggle of the Good Bad Man.
By the way, I realize that 98 percent of the current audience has little reference to understand the inspiration of the series and its style. How many people today even know what “Flash Gordon” was?
Like any classic serial from 70 years ago, there are good chapters and bad chapters detailing the good guys’ efforts to win. This for me was a good chapter with multiple surprises, several new characters, and some rousing action.
No spoilers here.
This chapter had some issues with pacing and visual excess. Performances were solid, especially from Mark Hamill as the aging Luke Skywalker and Driver who brings great intensity as Kylo Ren. Ridley’s Rey is a wonderful heroine.
At its end, I found myself wanting to see the next film and that is the hallmark of a great serial.
On DVD: Valerian
French director and writer Luc Besson is perhaps best known for his science fiction romance, “The Fifth Element” and this film that was released this summer is sort of a spiritual sequel to it.
Like the former film, it is set in the far future, has humans interacting with alien species to address an interplanetary threat and has a strong theme of romance.
“Valerian,” based on a classic French comic book series, seems bloated next to the former film with more eye candy and more CGI sequences. It also has two leads who appear to be high school kids, but are not, who I could never take remotely seriously.
Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sgt. Laureline (Cara Delevinge) are called to the City of the Thousand Planets to deliver a small lizard capable of reproducing almost anything. The last of its species, it is much in demand and plays a small role in the film’s real story concerning the destruction of a world.
I really wanted to like this film, but Besson allowed the story to get lost too many times in narrative detours that were visually interesting but dramatic dead ends.
On Blu-ray: One Million Years B.C.
This 1940 caveman epic has been lovingly restored and presented in pristine condition on this new Blu-Ray from VCI. Largely a film without dialogue, it tells the intersecting stories of two tribes of people: the more brutal Rock People and the civilized Shell People.
The story is set at a time where wooly mammoths roamed the landscape along with dinosaurs – yes, I know that’s not possible. It’s a fable about how people learned to live together and taken as simply a story it is enjoyable.
Special effects shots involving lizards on miniature sets will seem crude in this era of CGI, but other effects, particularly in the climax of the film with a volcano erupting are first rate even today.
Victor Mature had his first starring role in the film and the now forgotten Carole Landis showed she was both lovely and talented and that her early death cut short a promising career.
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