Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a miracle. After the rousing and wonderful The Force Awakens’ safety and adherence to formula, The Last Jedi finds itself in a position of both commenting and evolving on top of that formula. It is a thesis statement, one set forward by its writer and director Rian Johnson, on the collective opinions of the Star Wars fan community, while also being a complex and well informed blockbuster. That shouldn’t be possible, but instead, that is the place that we find ourselves in. Rian Johnson really does just work his magic.
The Last Jedi starts off like a Star Wars movie but soon veers off into darker more intense places. It is a spectacular achievement of storytelling, most likely attributed to Rian Johnson. The screenplay is structured in such a way where it is almost impossible to notice the skill employed in making sure that each new scene is the answer to some question and the structure and filmmaking being that way can’t help but drive the story forward. Johnson covers a whole ton of ground with the film, but what becomes especially apparent is the fact that the individual plot points are there to serve a larger narrative that redefines both the character’s and the audience’s interpretation of the Jedi and Sith. What these films often find themselves doing is ignoring the reality that they are driven by the actions of only a few people, trying to allow the scale of the events outshine the supposedly more contrived character driven storytelling. Johnson doesn’t bother and in doing so, turns his film into quite a messy (but that’s fine) character piece, where the logic of the story is found in the messy, often impulsive behaviors of the characters. If that sounds awfully like The Empire Strikes Back and maybe even some of the more salvageable parts of the prequels, well, I’d say it should. The Last Jedi has no qualms with being ripped open like a nerve and allowing that to dictate the storytelling and therefore it succeeds on a level that many other films, including the still excellent The Force Awakens, fail at. This way of structuring the narrative makes it almost impossible for the film not to comment on the state of the fanbase of Star Wars itself, with it explicitly telling the audience of legacy obsessed fanboys and nitpickers unable to understand the way that they intricacies of human behavior can alter a story to firmly sit down and consider the fact that their way at looking at these films is spectacularly immature. The Last Jedi succeeds then to, within its narrative pacing and thematic ambitions give a mature and interesting answer to them by actually developing the formula further. Johnson seems so in tandem with the particular themes running throughout this series of films that he even comes back and redeems the tematic lining of the Prequels while he’s at it. This movie is that good. While this tonal and thematic choice for the film is the reason why it works so well, going on the messy side of the humans at the center of this story does mean that filmmaking, world-building, acting and basically...everything, would need to be able to keep up the illusion and as Brick, Looper, The Brothers Bloom and “Ozymandias” prove that is just about the case. Johnson shoots some of the most exhilarating action sequences of all time in this film especially a two man lightsaber fight that happens in the second act. There’s a visceral sense to it that is so delectable it almost becomes exhausting and that doesn’t even bring up the final action scene of the film, a gorgeous miracle of digital compositing that is so well crafted that it comes close to outdoing the trench run in A New Hope. The acting, as you’d probably anticipated, is much the same. The returning players: Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac are all as good as they were in the last one of these, and they’re all asked to push their characters further because, again, most of the plot and theme comes down to their actions. Newcomers are fantastic as well, with Kelly Marie Tran coming out of nowhere to basically steal an entire subplot of the movie. So, what is there left to say really? The Last Jedi is fantastic in almost every aspect of its being, a rich blockbuster of endless emotion, able to crush and exhilarate. It is a true masterwork, pushing the franchise further than it ever has been. I give The Last Jedi a 9.5 out of 10. P.S. The PORGS are a great little touch of character building that helps tie the good guys goals back to the more unifying nature of the Force and the beauty of the natural planets, and how that contrasts with the cold mechanisms of the warfare in the film. This is code for, THE PORGS ARE FUCKING AWESOME!
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |