National Post (National Edition)
THE LAST JEDI
WITH EPISODE VIII, HAVE WE REACHED PEAK STAR WARS? CHRIS KNIGHT’S 4.5-STAR
When The Force awoke, two long years ago, pretty much the worst thing critics had to say was that it was a beat-for-beat retread of Star Wars, the 1977 original. And they’ll be saying it again of this one. The Last Jedi hearkens back strongly to The Empire Strikes Back; even the opening crawl, which has the rebels in retreat and the First Order on the march, feels very Empire in its design. Later, writer/director Rian Johnson (Looper) will mix in notes from Return of the Jedi, although the final movement will be far less certain.
But again, an abundance of nostalgia is about the worst thing you can say about Episode VIII; and a large part of the GenX fan base that embraced the original will aver that you can never have enough of that anyway.
So here we go again. The forces of goodness and decency are being driven from one planetary redoubt and are looking for another. In pursuit, a trio of baddies. In ascending order of rank we have General Hux (Dohmnall Gleeson), whose command of English suggests he owns a special thesaurus with only the evil words; Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), finally convinced to ditch the faux-Vader helmet because he doesn’t actually need it to breathe; and Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), who like the Emperor of old is content to lounge around, surrounded by red-velvet bodyguards, and cackle.
The good guys are led by General Leia Organa. She and Carrie Fisher have basically become one and the same, and every moment we see her on the screen is bittersweet, knowing that whatever befalls her in this movie, mortality has dictated she won’t be around for the next. As Yoda would say: Strong is she with the Force ... but not that strong.
Then there’s Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron, a cocky cockpit jockey whose loose interpretation of the chain of command has Leia uncertain whether to give him a medal or throw him in the brig. (She will basically try each of these at least once, with varying success.)
In the opening battle, a real whiz-bang affair, he pulls his XWing into a stall in what might be the geekiest/greatest bit of fighter flying in the franchise. Later, he’ll participate in an aerial battle that feels like a Second World War dogfight in which one side is flying First World War aircraft.
Leaving aside the technology brings us to Daisy Ridley as Rey, last seen confronting a wizened Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on a remote island.
The film catches up with them at the very same moment. Luke’s first line is — well, let’s just say actions speak louder than words. You’ll have to see the scene to know what I mean. Also, I can report that Chewbacca gets one of the film’s best lines — again, sort of.
Johnson has packed a remarkable amount of laughout-loud humour into the film’s franchise-topping 150 minutes. (Attack of the Clones was a mere 142; it just seemed longer.) Much of this comes from the Porgs, meme-worthy pudgy pigeons that Han Solo would never have allowed on the Millennium Falcon. I miss Han ...
Anyway, back to Rey. The young warrior holds her own opposite Luke, forcing the old man to become a reluctant guru as she struggles to figure out what this Force thing is and why it flows so strongly in her that she can basically use it to place long-distance collect calls to other Force-sensitives. Equally important, Ridley proves the equal of Hamill in grounding this fantastical world. She believes in his “hokey religion,” and through her, so do we.
This leaves John Boyega as Finn, the Storm trooperturned-rebel. His character’s storyline is the flabbiest, as he joins forces with a technician named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran, a fantastic addition to the cast) on a mission-within-a-mission that will lead them to a casino planet (every Star Wars movie needs its exotic watering hole), involve a humanitarian sideline, and eventually include treachery and counter-treachery. If The Last Jedi were in need of a trim it would be in this plotline; that said, it does give rise to one of the film’s most beautiful and resonant lines, when Rose tells Finn the secret to victory: “Don’t fight what you hate; save what you love.”
Star Wars has always excelled at that; combining cheesy techno-babble — “Horizontal boosters ... alluvial dampers ... hydro-spanners” — with ungrammatical, vaguely Buddhistsounding wisdom: “The greatest teacher, failure is.” The Last Jedi continues to balance the mixture perfectly, while increasing the stakes for both sides — we lose some memorable heroes and villains alike before this chapter is closed.
If this instalment doesn’t quite deliver the same adrenalin rush as The Force Awakens, that may be because the human body can only take so much of that neurotransmitter at a time. Much as I love the Star Wars galaxy, I fear the day is fast approaching when we reach peak Force.
Recall that when the very first movie blasted into our analogue pop cultural consciousness 40 years ago, it would be a full three years before the next hit, not counting the benighted Christmas Special.
But in less time we’ve already seen The Force Awakens, Rogue One and The Last Jedi, with the Han Solo movie a mere six months away, a new trilogy from Johnson announced, and rumours of an Obi-Wan trilogy in the works.
But again, “too much of a good thing” is such a mild critique you could almost put it on the movie’s poster. The Last Jedi provides a resoundingly positive answer to an old smuggler’s long-ago query: “Let’s see what this piece of junk can do.”
½ Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens Dec. 15, with some screenings on Dec. 14.