A FORCE TO BEHOLD
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (12A) Out of this galaxy
NEITHER the Walt Disney Company nor the British Royal Family, a pair of institutions that in some ways have much in common, are willing to confirm rumours that two of the many armourshrouded stormtroopers in Star Wars: The Last Jedi are in fact Prince William and Prince Harry.
But, if they are, the princes have chosen their silver-screen debuts wisely. This film, the ninth with Star Wars in the title since George Lucas’s original 1977 movie, is one of the most accomplished blockbusters I have seen for years; bold in conception, spectacular in realisation, but also chock-full of genuine wit, philosophical depth, and stirring poignancy.
It was a masterstroke to hand the directorial reins to Rian Johnson, a self-confessed Star Wars nut raised in California who has also written the script and filled it with clever references to all those previous films he knows so well.
But just as the cast profile straddles the Atlantic, with our own Domhnall Gleeson and British stars John Boyega and Daisy Ridley playing opposite the likes of American actors Mark Hamill and Adam Driver, so too was there plenty of wizardry behind the scenes. The technical effects team at Pinewood Studios has wrought absolute wonders.
Not everything can be controlled, however, and not all of the film’s poignancy was intentional. A concluding caption pays tribute to ‘our princess’ Carrie Fisher, who over 40 years has metamorphosed into the venerable General Leia Organa, and who died after filming had been completed. How sad she is not around to take part in the publicity tour; she was always such fun on chat-show sofas.
In truth, it takes a very long time to get from the film’s exhilarating start to that moving sign-off. Stars Wars: The Last Jedi lasts fully two-and-a-half hours, and there were moments towards the end when I felt like one of those poor Cubans listening to Fidel Castro at the height of his oratorical vigour: just as you’re planning your route to the exit, it lurches into yet another new lease of life. But, my goodness, how it rewards the audience’s staying power.
The second in the so-called Star Wars sequel trilogy, it follows directly on from 2015’s The Force Awakens.
Han Solo is dead, killed by his and Leia’s son Kylo Ren (Driver), and the villainous First Order’s ineffably evil, incomparably ugly Supreme Leader Snoke (a mercifully unrecognisable Andy Serkis) is determined to finish off the noble Resistance, led by a resolute, but ageing and vulnerable Leia.
The Last Jedi skilfully continues the handover of the Star Wars baton to a younger generation. Snoke has the dastardly but comically hapless General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) to do his dirty work for him, facilitating some cheap but welcome laughs. Yet there is little comedy from Snoke’s other instrument of evil, the emotionally conflicted Ren.
Driver again makes a fantastic baddie, a worthy successor to Darth Vader, investing his character with proper depth. He’s the kind of tortured soul, tugged one way by conscience and another by impulse, who would grace any psychological thriller.
If I had to find a spoonful of negativity to splash on such a cinematic feast, it would be that
Ridley, as the space scavenger Rey, is outclasssed in her scenes with Driver and the equally terrific Hamill. She’s jolly pretty, and wields a light sabre wonderfully, but her dramatic range still strettches only from AB to just beyond
Happily, Hammill gets a gratifyf ing amount of screen time as Leia’s elusivetwin, the disillukywalker, sioned Luke Sklooking in his oilskin coat like a lonely old Norwegian fisherman.
He is swaddled in self-imposed
exile and existential gloom on a remote, jagged island, supposedly the most ‘unfindable place in the galaxy’. (In reality, as we all know, it’s our very own Skellig Michael).
Nevertheless, Luke is still a Jedi knight, quite possibly the last one in existence, and Rey needs him to teach her the secrets of the Force. Will he be tempted out of retirement?
Even without him, the beleaguered Resistance, rapidly running out of both fuel and ideas, can muster some impressive assets, among them the apostate stormtrooper Finn (Boyega) and his unlikely new sidekick, a doughty janitor called Rose (Kelly Marie Tran).
In fine Star Wars tradition, there is also some splendid droid action, and a collection of weird and wonderful new animals that might have escaped from last year’s Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.
Meanwhile, maverick pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is a further thorn in the First Order’s side, though he’s almost as much of a handful for his own side, especially Leia’s secondin-command, Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo, played by a stern Laura Dern, sporting a fetching mauve hairdo that makes her look for all the world like an inter-galactic Mrs Slocombe, from Are You Being Served? In our seats at an IMAX screening earlier this week (do see this film on the biggest screen available) we were certainly being served.
A glorious episode in a casino looks like the realisation of a feverish dream surreally fusing James Bond with Dr Dolittle, and there’s also a scene-stealing turn from Benicio del Toro, who has surely booked himself a place in the next instalment.
It was great fun, too, spotting a few fleeting cameos, from Adrian Edmondson and Lily Cole among others. But all this is underpinned by some genuinely profound philosophising about life and death, including a line about the way to win being more about saving those you love than killing those you hate, that felt almost too deep for Star Wars.
The Last Jedi is that very rare thing, an intelligent blockbuster that deserves every penny of its doubtless immense box-office returns.
A SHORTER version of this review appeared in Wednesday’s paper.