(Be warned, this review contains spoilers)
The Last Jedi is the latest instalment in Disney’s attempt to continue the Star Wars saga.
I managed to resist writing a review of The Force Awakens, a film so bad that my first draft reached about three pages, before I decided I had better things to do. Having seen The Last Jedi, however, I had to write something. TFA may have been a mess of a film, but there was just enough story to criticise. Not so, with The Last Jedi. If The Force Awakens was a flashy car driving off in the wrong direction without a map, The Last Jedi is the remains of the car after they drove it off a cliff without looking where they were going, in a manic, drunken haze.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I love all six of the Lucas films, even the prequels with their occasional hiccups. However, I had no preconceptions about where the new trilogy stories should go. I enjoyed the continuation novels when I was younger, but many of them were flawed and I was happy for the films to go in a new direction. The problem is, that direction should be up, not down. Forward, not backward. I don’t automatically dislike ‘new’ Star Wars films because I’m no longer 12. I greatly enjoyed Rogue One, and I love all of the animated Clone Wars saga. My opinions on The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are based, as much as they can be, on my opinion that they are badly written, poorly thought out stories in general, irrespective of Star Wars.
Having said that, there’s no point even delving into the story or character details of The Last Jedi. Plenty of people have done that, but frankly there’s so little substance or logic to the new movie that trying to criticise individual elements would like trying to criticise a random number generator for not counting sequentially. The Last Jedi genuinely plays out like Randolph and Mortimer had a $1 bet that if they went out of their way to make a nonsensical mess, it would still be a success, hailed for its brilliance simply because it is a main-sequence Star Wars movie. I’m not even exagerating. The film is such a total shambles devoid of merit, that such a revelation would not surprise me if proven true. In fact, it would make more sense than imagining so many talented people thought they were making something worthwhile. All that would be needed is for Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd to jump out, accompanied by Jamie Lee Curtis, screaming “Surprise!” (See Trading Places, if you’re confused).
Nothing of consequence happens in The Last Jedi, apart from the death of a beloved character from the original trilogy (who isn’t remotely like his original character except for the same actor and character name) and the death of a sort-of villain. A villain who, because of his death in this film, served no purpose anyway. Episode 9 could avoid any reference to the events of this movie, and still have no need to explain anything apart from Luke’s fate.
The Last Jedi truly makes films like The Fast and the Furious 7 seem like a logical, character driven drama with accurate physics. So forgetting the story and plot (since there weren’t any), what about the other elements?
One of the surprisingly poor things was the acting. Now, I’m pretty lenient when it comes to acting. For example, I love a lot of cheesy 80s action movies that many people would consider awful. However, some of the efforts in The Last Jedi, especially from Daisy Ridley, were honestly shocking (And having seen her in other things, I know she can act). Do you remember what it was like in school, to see other children acting in plays, where they recite lines in a monotone voice with quick breaths between every other word? I’m not exagerating when I say that is how she delivered many of her lines. Again, I wonder whether it will all be revealed as a big joke – a stretched out clip from a sketch show where they were all having fun lampooning Star Wars and science fiction in general. Only Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill come through with dignity, as consummate professionals despite the dire material.
Okay, even if the acting and story are poor, surely the action is fun? I’m sorry to say, the action scenes lacked any sense of engagement. Even the Transformers movies at their worst, are pulse-pounding eye-candy. I felt not a single quickened pulse or rush of adrenalin with The Last Jedi. The only way I could describe it, is to say imagine an action scene from Robocop or Total Recall, then imagine a scene where a character just fires repeatedly down a shooting range at a villain, neither of them moving. Next, imagine you’re supposed to find the latter every bit as exciting and action-packed as the former. To be clear, I’m not trying to describe the visuals in any literal way. I’m attempting to find a way to describe the emotional engagement of the action in the film.
I have heard a lot of praise for the striking visuals and direction in The Last Jedi, but I found both highly lacking and without any sense of cohesion. There are perhaps three scenes that felt visually interesting, but too consciously so. Perhaps my low opinion of the rest of the movie has tainted my general opinion of the direction and cinematography. One of the strangest things I discovered, which also happened with The Force Awakens (albeit not to the same extent), was a sense of ‘smallness’. Through the magic of story telling, Lucas managed to conjure a sense of the entire galaxy behind his stories, even in the first Star Wars, which was then expanded exponentially as he went. The Last Jedi feels as though it’s an, inconsequential little side-story. The Rebel fleet and the Imperial forces have been whittled down to nothing before the film even starts, and through it all there’s no sense of a wider galaxy beyond a single populated planet visited during the film.
The humour is also ‘off’ in this movie. There has always been hefty dose of tongue-in-cheek humour in Star Wars. It is, after all, a family-friendly adventure, albeit with a thoughtful, philosophical core that lends it depth (during the Lucas era, anyway). Lucas could be accused of taking some of the humour too far in the Prequels, but even the infamous Mr Binks was comedic genius compared to the out-of-place Marvelesque levels on display here.
As with The Force Awakens, sadly John Williams appears to have given up again, where the best moments are simply highlights from the original movies. But with this material, who can blame him?
Was there anything good about the film? Well, the Porgs were cute, though over-used, and the crystaline fox-wolves looked great. There was a single, vaguely interesting character thread, as Rey and Emo-Darth shared a bond through some long-distance communication, yet even that ultimately came to nothing. That’s about all that I took away from this car crash of a movie. The tragic and truly sad thing, is knowing that this was Carrie Fisher’s last outing as our wonderful Princess Leia. She deserved so much better, as did Mark Hamill (who delivered a far better performance than the script deserved).
I thought the only way was up, after The Force Awakens. Boy, was I wrong… Whilst I’ve seen worse films, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a major, mega-budget studio production quite this poor. Even Jupiter Ascending, Suicide Squad or John Carter were less of a mess. Perhaps the worst sin, is that ultimately the film is truly boring. Nothing of consequence happens, and even the moments that should be full of excitement or emotion are simply flat and lifeless. Let us just hope the new Han Solo movie is more like Rogue One, as it looks like the only hope we have for decent Star Wars in the future is from the stand-alone movies. I’m giving The Last Jedi a higher score than it deserves, with a star for both Mark and Carrie.
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