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Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver
Director: Rian Johnson
Genre: Space opera
Rating: PG-13
RUNTIME: 152 Mins
There’s no cinematic event quite like a new Star Wars film. Hype levels go through the roof, my phone finds itself buried at the bottom of a drawer and all social media accounts are silenced.
This also sets me up for a fall; if the movie is not quite what I expected, I can be on a downer for days. Luckily, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi delivers in spades, even if a couple of flaws hold it back from topping any of the Original Trilogy classics.
Fear not, I won’t be revealing any plot details bar what has already been established in the trailers, and certainly won’t be spoiling any of the hidden treats in store.
The story picks up right after the events of The Force Awakens, with the First Order setting out to conquer a Republic-less galaxy by destroying the Resistance. Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) tries her best to convince a grouchy Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to leave his secluded island and re-join the fight.
The story wastes no time setting the stakes astronomically high and things only get direr from there.
J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens got criticised for borrowing too much from A New Hope, but recycling old material isn’t an issue in The Last Jedi. It’s evident that director Rian Johnson understands the criticisms about every preceding film and predicted the assumptions about this one (to the point where some dialogue sounds as if it was lifted right from fans’ mouths), and that he used that knowledge to absolutely shatter expectations.
Johnson manages to tell a deeply personal yet large-scale tale that gives every character a moment to shine.
The film moves at a brisk pace, covering an impressive amount of ground while still finding time for slower, more methodical scenes, not to mention well-placed moments of levity. In fact, this is the funniest Star Wars film yet, eliciting multiple belly laughs, even if it occasionally strays too far into immersion-breaking Marvel gag territory.
One of the major changes is that Hamill is no longer playing Luke as the archetypal hero – he’s now a conflicted, deeply damaged Jedi master. He rises to the occasion with his finest performance as Luke, using the timbre of his voice and the pain in his eyes to express Luke’s reluctance to confront his past, let alone help Rey mould her future. There’s a frankly brilliant sense of poetry to Luke’s story in this movie, with elements that harken all the way back to the start of his journey in beautiful fashion.
Ridley and Hamill play off each other well, expressing a strange mix of frustration and empathy for one another, resulting in something vastly more interesting than the expected master-student relationship. Her narrative isn’t unlike that of Kylo Ren, who is played with a tortured psyche and haunted demeanour by Adam Driver as he strives to please his own mentor, Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis).
Elsewhere in the galaxy, even though the Resistance is in quite a pickle, its members can’t decide on the best course of action to combat the First Order.
Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is still the hotshot pilot you remember but his brashness soon gets him into hot water with the leadership, General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern). Meanwhile, Finn (John Boyega) and Resistance maintenance worker Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) have their own plan to save the day which takes them to the casino city of Canto Bight, where people and aliens of all shapes and sizes live in excess.
Fisher passed away last year after completing her work on The Last Jedi, leaving us with her final performance, which proves to be the best part of the Resistance scenes.
She’s a wizened leader with the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders, having to deal with young upstarts like Poe who aren’t too dissimilar from her in her princess years. Yet for all of her responsibility, she exudes a compassionate warmth and isn’t above a bit of wry humour. Some of her lines have her ruminate on purpose and loss, lines that now evoke a special double meaning.
John Williams once again delivers a soul-stirring Star Wars score – a feat that must be second nature to him by now. Thundering arrangements turn skirmishes into epic battles, new compositions emphasise the sense of adventure, and old themes make appearances for a touch of nostalgia.
The film is not perfect by any means. It does run a little long, with particularly noticeable sag in the middle act with some unnecessary subplots. Furthermore, there is still the problem of certain characters not being fleshed out nearly enough and there are plot twists which are sure to polarise the fan-base.
Still, The Last Jedi embraces everything in the franchise that came before while taking big risks to push the story into new and unexpected places. Despite some niggles, everything ultimately works toward delivering an absolutely stunning sequence of events that make its emotionally rich ending a possibility. It’s dramatic, it’s exciting, it’s heartfelt, it’s heart-breaking and it’s funnier than any Star Wars movie has any right to be.
Now showing in: City Centre, Seef I & II, Saar, Wadi Al Sail, Dana Cinemas, Novo, Mukta A2
Kristian’s verdict: 5/5
