Spoiler warning: these reviews reveal plot twists.
While Rey attempts to convince Luke Skywalker to return from his exile, her friends in the Resistance are being pursued by the First Order…
WHICH VERSION? There’s only one. The on-screen title is Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.
GOOD GUYS:
* Commander Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is still the Resistance’s most dashing pilot. As the story begins, he squares up against the evil First Order fleet – on his own, just one small fighter ship against city-sized cruisers. It’s a gutsy delaying tactic, but after he’s bought enough time for his colleagues to escape he can’t resist hammering home the advantage and leading a full-scale assault. While the bulk of the Resistance gets away, they suffer many loses – and Poe is blamed. He’s demoted by his superior, Leia, and then kept out of the loop, which angers him when he believes a new battle plan will lead to the Resistance’s destruction. So he agrees to an idea cooked up by his pal Finn and new character Rose, then relieves Vice Admiral Holdo of command…
* Droid BB-8 is by Poe’s side during the early space battle, then accompanies Finn and Rose on their mission.
* General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) is still in charge of the Resistance. During a space battle, though, the hull of her cruiser is hit and she’s sucked out into space… but because she’s awesome and has vaguely defined Force powers she’s able to survive and fly across space back to the ship. (How much you like this Mary Poppins-ish moment will probably depend on your age, your level of cynicism and how much joy you have left in your soul.) The character then spends a long while recovering. Later, once the Resistance have reached a safe planet and are holed up in a fortified base, Leia’s surprised to see her brother walk in. Leia and Luke share an extremely touching scene together before he leaves to confront Kylo Ren… Very sadly, Carrie Fisher died not long after filming The Last Jedi. The Force will *always* be with her.
* C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) features in a few scenes, interacting with Leia, Poe and Luke, but doesn’t contribute anything beyond nostalgia.
* Finn (John Boyega) is unconscious to begin with, after his injury at the end of the previous film. When he awakens his first thought is, ‘Where’s Rey?’ Later, he decides to leave and find his friend, but is caught in the act by a Resistance engineer called Rose. The two of them bond and come up with a plan to disrupt the First Order’s ability to track the Resistance fleet. However – and here’s where it starts to get convoluted – in order to sneak aboard a First Order ship and do some sabotage, they need a master codebreaker. So with Poe’s sanction, they leave the fleet, travel several parsecs across space, and visit a casino in a city called Canto Bight to find a guy recommended by Finn’s friend Maz . The casino section is the film’s biggest flaw: it’s frivolous, throwaway and – with its Art Deco stylings, naff gags, simplistic politics and crummy CGI – an unwelcome reminder of the Star Wars prequels. (It does, however, contain an elaborate tracking shot that’s a reference to the 1927 film Wings, which pleased this film-geek blogger.) After much titting about, Finn and Rose don’t find Maz’s mate, but do stumble across another codebreaker called DJ who agrees to help them. Later, while the Resistance are defending their base on a planet with a crust of red salt, Finn leads a mission to destroy the First Order’s biggest gun.
* Having found Luke at the end of The Force Awakens, Rey (Daisy Ridley) refuses to leave his remote island. She wants him to come and help the Resistance; they need the resurgence of the Jedi order to defeat the First Order. Luke is initially grumpy and says he’s not interested, but Rey perseveres. In part, it’s because she recognises the island from her dreams. Soon, a teacher-pupil relationship develops, though he’s not impressed by her understanding of the Force (“It’s a power that Jedi have that allows them to control people and make things float.”). It’s clear, though, that Rey has huge, untamed power… and seems unconsciously drawn to the dark side. She also begins to have psychic conversations with the First Order’s Kylo Ren, who is Leia’s son and Luke’s former pupil. (The conversations are really well staged and played. The two actors are filmed on their respective sets and simply cut together as if they were talking to each other.) One night, Rey’s drawn to a murky cave where she experiences a nightmarish hallucination – she sees multiple versions of herself and is given a tantalising glimpse of her long-lost parents. Soon after, she leaves to find Kylo and turn him back from the dark side. But he wants her to join him in villainy. He also draws out a truth she’s always instinctively known: her parents were no one special and simply abandoned her. Rey resists the temptation to become evil and escapes…
* Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has been found. Following on directly from the monumentally wonderful cliffhanger ending to The Force Awakens, Rey reverentially passes him his old lightsaber… which he then just dismissively tosses away! (Great gag. Great mission statement.) Luke’s in a bad way, wracked with guilt for his failure to help his student Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren. He’s living a basic, prehistoric-like existence on a rocky outcrop, sharing it with a strange mixture of creatures, and initially doesn’t want to listen to Rey. He finally agrees to teach her in the ways of the Jedi, but she leaves when she comes to believe that Luke tried to murder Kylo. Later, Luke apparently shows up on the Resistance’s planet. But he’s not really there: he’s projecting his body across space using his Force powers. He squares off against the entire First Order battalion, then Kylo in person – all as a stalling tactic to allow his friends to escape. The enormous effort proves too much and, back on his island, the real Luke fades away from existence. The last thing he sees before he dies are twin suns in the sky… With his greying beard, shaggy hair and cantankerous maturity, this is a career-best performance from Hamill, who in this series has believably progressed from a naïve, young upstart to a wise yet grizzled elder statesman.
* Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo, taking over the role from Peter Mayhew) accompanied Rey to Luke’s island, so the two old pals now meet. Briefly. Chewy then spends his time hanging around on the Millennium Falcon.
* R2-D2 (Jimmy Vee) is aboard the Millennium Falcon, so Luke sees him when he explores the ship. He tells the droid that he’s not coming back and nothing will change his mind. So R2 replays the famous hologram message of Princess Leia recorded more than 30 years previously. “That was a cheap move,” says Luke wryly.
* Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) takes over running the Resistance when Leia is incapacitated. As with most Laura Dern characters, she has a folksy quality, but she’s a steely military leader. She also has purple hair. Holdo doesn’t seem to like Poe very much, especially when he questions her odd tactical decisions. It’s eventually revealed that she knows what she’s doing, her actions will save the Resistance, and she’s willing to sacrifice her life for the greater good. Quite why she kept this plan to herself is another matter.
* Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) is a young woman who works for the Resistance as an engineer. When we meet her, she’s mourning her sister Paige (Veronica Ngo), who was killed in a battle with the First Order. Then she rumbles Finn in the act of running away and electrocutes him. When Finn reveals that the First Order can now track the Resistance through hyperspace, Rose suggests a plan to scupper this ability – and the pair head off to the casino city. Later, on the planet with the Resistance base, she saves Finn’s life because she loves him… Rose is a great addition to the regular cast and it’s a good, likeable performance. Rather astonishingly, while publicising this movie, Kelly Marie Tran became the first Asian woman to ever appear on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine.
* Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) returns from The Force Awakens in a cameo. Finn and Poe phone her up to ask for some advice and she talks to them while in the middle of a gun fight.
* Yoda (Frank Oz) appears as a ghost when Luke’s at a low ebb and offers him some kind, good-natured guidance. In a move that makes a geek’s heart sing, the character is back to being a puppet after his drift to CGI in the early noughties.
BAD GUYS:
* Among several First Order officers and lackeys are characters played by Vyvyan from The Young Ones, Lysa Arryn from Game of Thrones and Finchy from The Office.
* General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) is still in operational command of the First Order and is still a prick.
* Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) is not happy when the Resistance escape his clutches and takes his anger out on Hux. We finally see him for real – as opposed to a hologrammatic projection – when we visit his throne room. So we can now confirm that he’s a disfigured alien who’s about six feet tall. He still doesn’t make much impression, though.
* Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is a changed man. He’s still evil; he’s still kneeling before Snoke. But you can see the doubt in his eyes caused by his encounters with Rey in the previous film. The two characters also start to talk to each other via a psychic connection, which affects each in interesting ways. We’re told conflicting versions of what happened years previously between Kylo and Luke – that Kylo rebelled and murdered his fellow students, or that Luke grew paranoid and decided to kill Kylo before he grew too powerful. The truth lies somewhere in the middle and there’s a wonderful emotional depth to the whole storyline. After killing Supreme Leader Snoke, Kylo takes his place at the head of the First Order… Driver is again absolutely fantastic in this role, turning what could be a cartoon villain into the most complex character in the movie.
* DJ (Benicio del Toro) is a master codebreaker who Finn and Rose are conveniently imprisoned with just as they’re looking for a master codebreaker. A louche scoundrel with an odd speech impediment, the character is clearly shifty so it’s not the biggest shock in Star Wars history when he betrays his new friends for a stash of cash. Del Toro is a bit irritating.
* Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) returns from The Force Awakens and has a fight with her old nemesis Finn. During which, her metallic helmet is cracked open and we see a terrified look in her eye before she dies.
BEST ACTION SEQUENCE: Kylo takes Rey to see Snoke in his theatrically designed throne room. A massive open space with a shiny floor and blood-red walls, it looks like the set of a dream sequence from a 1950s Hollywood musical. Snoke taunts Rey but also arrogantly ridicules Kylo, who snaps and murders his master. Kylo and Rey then team up to take on Snoke’s bodyguards in a beautifully choreographed and wonderfully filmed fight that’s full of invention and excitement and violence.
BEST COMEDY MOMENT: The humour isn’t always successful in this film and a handful of gags fall flat. But there are still many chucklesome moments. There’s Poe speaking to Hux over a radio and pretending not to recognise his voice… Finn stumbling around in a space suit that’s leaking fluid everywhere… Rey saying she’s from nowhere, Luke replying that ‘no one is from nowhere’, Rey telling him she’s from Jakku, and Luke deadpanning, ‘All right, that is pretty much nowhere’… Chewbacca and the cute little porgs… Luke ridiculing Rey’s naivety about the Force… BB-8 mimicking a First Order droid… But the best laugh comes after Kylo has ordered every weapon in the First Order arsenal to fire at Luke Skywalker. Miraculously, Luke seems to survive the battery intact. The way Mark Hamill then archly flicks away some dust from his shoulder may very well be the greatest ‘fuck you’ in cinema history.
MUSIC: It’s by John Williams so of course it’s *superb*.
PERSONAL CONNECTION: My first viewing of The Last Jedi was at the Everyman Baker Street cinema in London on 19 December 2017. I went with my great friend and former colleague Fraser Dickson; going to that cinema to see a new Star Wars movie has become an annual tradition for us.
REVIEW: In one half of this film some characters are doggedly chased by the bad guys, while in the other half the young lead travels off to a mysterious planet to learn about the Force from a grumpy old Jedi. This bifurcated storytelling was used so well in The Empire Strikes Back, of course, but here it’s more of a problem. And that’s a big shame because in many, many ways The Last Jedi is *wonderful*. All the scenes featuring Rey, Luke and/or Kylo are knock-it-out-of-the-park successful… The main series characters – Rey, Poe and Finn – now feel just as integral to Star Wars as Luke, Leia and Han, which really is an astonishing achievement… There are plenty of cute echoes of previous Star Wars situations, but the film is also bold enough to push the mythology into dramatically interesting territory (Luke has flaws, Rey’s heritage is just a red herring, the villain is sympathetic)… The crosscutting between scenes and subplots is fluid and pacey… The action sequences are exactly what you’d want from this type of movie: exciting, meaningful, inventive and easy to follow… The look of the film is marvellous, both in the art of the design and the craft of its realisation… The sound mix is staggeringly impressive… However, the half of the story that focuses on Poe, Finn and the others has several issues. Frankly, after an exciting opening, it starts to feel like vamping; like ‘stuff’ to pad out the running time. The plot is built around a chase sequence and the threat is that the First Order will catch up with the Resistance. But it’s not a chase where characters are sprinting or racing at full speed. It’s played more like ocean liners chugging along through space, which doesn’t exactly help with the tension. It’s also a chase where a pair of characters can pop off on a separate, self-contained and rather silly subplot for *hours*. And while they’re gone, there’s a naff bit of superficial drama back at the fleet. There’s no reason why Holdo doesn’t reveal her plan to Poe (or we viewers), other than to set up a reveal when we find out what it is. It’s artificial and unsatisfying. But, as irksome as they are, these gripes shouldn’t distract from how entertaining the rest of The Last Jedi is. It’s not as good as The Force Awakens – very few things in life are – but it’s still a movie to cherish.
Nine and a half beards that are grey when Luke is real but darker when he’s a Force projection and I’ve genuinely only just spotted that on my third viewing of the film out of 10
Ian Farrington 