By Brett Blake Billed as “The End of the Skywalker Saga,” this ninth Episode of the STAR WARS franchise has taken on the responsibility of attempting to satisfy multiple groups of fans and pay-off decades-long storytelling in something at least approaching a satisfying way. So does it? I’d say it does more than it doesn’t, though there are some quite serious weaknesses baked into this cake. To honor the spoiler-averse out there, here’s the officially-released synopsis of the film: “The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga.” It’s kind of interesting that the description doesn’t even mention this installment’s most central characters by name, so without getting too specific, it can also be said that Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe (Oscar Isaac) lead the charge for the Resistance, which puts them at odds with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), now Supreme Leader of the dreaded First Order and the fallen heir to the legacy of the Skywalker family, and a final battle will ensue for the fate of the galaxy. Much has been written (too much, probably) about the controversial previous Episode, THE LAST JEDI, which hit theaters two years ago. For some, it was a stunning and impressive tale that provided them substantial depth. For others, it was an empty and too-cute-by-half detour that squandered some of the potential of its characters. Two years later, I fall more in that second camp than I do the first; Rian Johnson’s choices in that film were gutsy and worthy of respect... but none of his swings for the fences connected with me. So with that preface out of the way, what can absolutely be said in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER’s favor is that director/co-writer J.J. Abrams is really trying (very, very hard) to position this movie as a more straightforward STAR WARS adventure that wants to be an all-around crowd-pleaser. I think he’s probably trying too hard. Now, to Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio’s credit, the story takes its responsibility to conclude the tale of the Skywalker family very seriously (in contrast with THE LAST JEDI, which -- in my view -- kind of pushed the “family fable” element off to the side and wanted to make them kind of irrelevant to this trilogy). While constrained by various factors out of their control (Luke Skywalker dying in THE LAST JEDI and Carrie Fisher passing away in real life), Abrams and Terrio clearly understand that these nine films -- as one large, epic tale -- hinge on the fortunes of the Skywalker family, and they do deliver something that feels (basically) appropriate in concluding that. As such, perhaps the most pleasant surprise for me is that, ultimately, Kylo Ren is truly the pivotal figure here; whereas the marketing has focused almost entirely on Rey and friends, this story really does equally belong to Kylo, and as the last in the Skywalker family line, that feels appropriate. The major characters and their performers themselves extremely well. Abrams seems to be quite aware of various criticisms that have been leveled at Rey’s characterization, and the screenplay does challenge Rey in a more pronounced way that in either of the previous two films (where, frankly, she wasn’t challenged much at all, either philosophically, emotionally, or physically); here, Rey is battling insecurity, she’s fallible, and frightened by the implications of her power, and Daisy Ridley carries that off with subtlety, grace, and an extremely appealing “I just want to do the right thing” spirit. I liked Rey after THE FORCE AWAKENS, but this is the first time I’ve truly rooted for her. I love how her arc is handled in this... with one major exception that I can’t discuss at this time! Oscar Isaac and John Boyega have such a natural and infectious chemistry together that any time they’re sharing a scene, you can feel some of that intangible STAR WARS magic happening. And credit to Anthony Daniels, as well, who gets more to do as C-3PO than in any movie since RETURN OF THE JEDI. But to me, as I hinted at above, this is really Adam Driver’s show. Driver is asked to sell some outlandish and kind of ridiculous things, honestly, but his great skill makes those things plausible. The story would utterly collapse if the audience doesn’t buy into what’s being done with Kylo Ren, and (by some accounts) plenty of people apparently aren’t buying in, but I did in a big way, and that’s pretty much all because of Driver’s extremely nuanced and complex work. This is his best performance of this trilogy, and it’s one of the best performances of the whole Saga. The various action sequences provide the sort of adventure thrills you’d want from a STAR WARS movie (a lightsaber duel between Rey and Kylo amidst wreckage and ocean waves is certainly the best battle of this trilogy), and there are plenty of cheer-worthy moments, alongside a couple of emotional resolutions that do manage to land with some heft. And as composer, John Williams once again demonstrates that he’s indispensable to these movies; his score for THE RISE OF SKYWALKER is powerful, both grandiose and delicate, and he closes out the series in high style. And yet the film as a whole, from a storytelling perspective, is deeply flawed. Structurally, the screenplay is an absolute mess, bouncing the characters from planet to planet to planet (to planet...) without a particularly deft feel for pacing. It does have a kind of enjoyably breathless energy (which Abrams’ previous, THE FORCE AWAKENS, certainly had), but it also has the effect of making much of the exposition (and there’s a lot of it in the first half) feel particularly clunky. It’s a lot of “We have to go to a place to get a thing to find a guy to do a thing that will take us to another place where there’s another thing...” stuff. Too much stuff, really, which renders some of the narrative needlessly and aggressively convoluted. It’s trying to do so many things, service so many characters (both old and new), that only a few end up being handled in a way that feels truly elegant or organic. It’s overstuffed, like a couple of movies spliced together and cut down into one, and that’s a problem. There’s also one HUGE aspect of the movie, relating to a certain returning villain, that is not explained anywhere near as well as it needed to be. Abrams relies far too much on the audience filling in the blanks, and he also resorts to some pretty hackneyed and borderline-insulting story “tricks” to attempt to make it all work. It’s basically inexcusable that this aspect of the plot is handled the way it is. The ultimate issue is this: it seems pretty clear (to me, anyway) that Abrams felt the need to provide something of a rebuttal to the controversial LAST JEDI. It doesn’t ignore the decisions made in that film, but in several cases, it bends over backwards to sort of rework those decisions to suit a very particular story that Abrams and Terrio seem to have been dead-set on telling. As such, the first act of this film is comprised of a lot of convoluted plot machinations that are necessary to set-up where they want to take the eventual second half of this story. They end up having to invent a host of new plot ideas because (evidently) they didn’t feel that THE LAST JEDI left the Saga in a position from which they could get to the ending they wanted without putting a bunch of new wheels in motion. And in some ways, I’m extremely sympathetic to that, as somebody who didn’t love THE LAST JEDI. I can understand feeling as though you have no choice but to jump through hoops in order to follow it up. But it’s just not done here with any particular grace at the writing level. But really, at the end of the day, my honest reaction to this movie is that I felt satisfied... enough. I felt as though my emotional connection to these films, which I was introduced to as a kid and have enjoyed (as an overall “thing,” if not necessarily every individual movie) for most of my life, was honored and respected and (mostly) paid-off. That doesn’t excuse where the movie falls short, but it does provide enough of an optimistic lift to top off the story of the Skywalker family in a way that is modestly fulfilling.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
|