The Last Jedi (2017)

The Last Jedi (2017)

Director: Ryan Johnson

Cast: Daisy Ridley, Mark Hammill, Carrie Fisher, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyongo, Laura Dern, Benicio del Toro

Anticipation is always high for any Star Wars movie and The Last Jedi wasn’t going to be the exception. People just can’t wait for that Star Wars logo to flash on the screen while John William’s legendary score blasts through the speakers, it just starts things out with such a blast! Of course, I was as excited as everybody else. Where the hell was Rey and Finn’s story going to go? Who’s going to go bad, who’s going to “turn”? The interesting thing about this particular Star Wars sequel was that directors were going to change. J.J. Abrams passed the baton to Ryan Johnson who took the reins of the series with relentlessness. I wasn’t floored when I heard that Johnson had gotten the gig because to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of Brick (2005) or The Brothers Bloom (2008). The only light at the end of his cinematic repertoire was a film called Looper (2012) which I did enjoy a whole lot. So, where would a new voice, a new director/writer take the series? I was extremely curious.

This time around, the rebels are escaping the ever-nearing death grip of The New Order. After the destruction of Star Killer Base, the Order is desperate to wipe out the last remaining members of the Rebel Alliance. But rebels are not so easy to kill. Meanwhile, Rey is trying to convince Luke to rejoin the fight, to lead, to train more Jedi. Sadly, Luke has all but given up on the force and the training of Jedi. He wants none of the responsibility. Will Rey convince him to come out of seclusion?

When I say that Johnson took the franchise relentlessly, I mean it. It feels as if its writer/director, Ryan Johnson is scrapping everything J.J. Abrams set up in The Force Awakens (2015) and doing his own thing. And by scrapping, I mean, completely obliterating a lot of what makes The Force Awakens what it is. So creatively speaking, that was so interesting. The Last Jedi is the polar opposite of what The Force Awakens was. If Force Awakens was giving fans everything they wanted, then The Last Jedi is defying what you expected from this sequel. It’s almost as if Johnson is saying, if we follow what Abrams set up, we’ll end up seeing the exact same films we’ve already seen. And Johnson obviously doesn’t want that, so he’s shaking things up almost to the point of starting anew. And I must admit, I dug this direction Johnson took a whole lot. With this movie, you’ll feel like no one is safe. It’s not like when you’re watching a movie and you know nothing is going to happen to the good guys, so let’s just enjoy how they go about doing what they got to do. Nope, in The Last Jedi you will feel like every single person on the screen is in danger of being obliterated, or killed or blasted into infinity by some freaking giant laser. In that sense, for me, the film succeeds. It takes away that feeling of safety towards the characters.  

The film succeeds in many other ways as well. It is a darker chapter in the franchise and in this way it is similar to The Empire Strikes Back (1980), but it’s not as blatant as The Force Awakens was with its fan service. This isn’t a Xerox copy of The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, though we hear and see echoes of both films. So it gives you a bit of that familiarity, but without becoming fan service, which was what The Force Awakens was guilty of. The Last Jedi has many new things going for it, old fans will be thrilled at how well they go about explaining exactly what The Force is but will also be surprised at the additions that Johnson makes to the mythology.  

Thematically speaking the film is all about the new wanting to stamp out the old, trying to forget it, leave it behind to start anew, which is kind of what the entire film attempts to do as well. I thought it was amazing how the film was mimicking what its characters were feeling. I loved where the characters were going and was surprised at every characters story arc and ultimate fate. I mean, Rey and Kilo, awesome! Snoke! Leia! Finn! Poe! So cool to see them all going through their own intense thing and then coming together in the grand finale. With each passing movie I love Rey even more. The new characters like Rose and Benicio del Toro’s DJ were welcome additions. I was especially proud of Benicio’s performance because he is one of Puerto Rico’s best actors, and he's up there in Star Wars and he represents. So, cool for Benicio!   

 The film is like a long trip you don’t want to end. When I thought it was just about to be over, boom, it wasn’t and a whole other chapter opens, and it’s also awesome. Final thoughts on The Last Jedi is that yes, it’s a very satisfying sequel. It is a dark chapter that shakes things up like crazy and attempts to put our characters in an incredibly difficult situation, therefore it is going to polarize audiences. Some will love it, others will hate it, or perhaps even find it “boring”, though honestly, I can’t agree one parsec with them. I kept thinking, boy, whoever ends up directing the next one is going to have a hard time doing it because this Ryan Johnson guy just left things in pretty dire straits! Ryan Johnson was like a hurricane that just passed through the Star Wars universe and left said universe in tatters. Where are these characters headed now? That’s what I want to know! We have to wait a couple of years to find out, so patience my young Padawan’s. Patience.

Ratings: 5 out of 5  

  

The Hobbit (2012)

Title: The Hobbit (2012)

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis

Review:

It’s been almost a decade since I last visited J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth with The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003), but boy, going back to Middle Earth with The Hobbitt: An Unexpected Journey, felt like I’d never left. That familiar feeling you’ll get when you watch The Hobbitt: An Unexpected Journey comes as a direct result of having the same filmmaking team behind the cameras. Same producers, same writers and yes, same director; Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth after having directed the first Lord of the Rings trilogy, the trilogy of films that won him numerous Academy Awards and made him a house hold name. This film does have an added bonus to it though: Guillermo del Toro also helped write it and conceptualize it, so it’s got a bit of another great fantasist in it. Unfortunately, del Toro had to bow out of directorial duties, sad in a way because I would have loved to see a Lord of the Rings film directed by del Toro, but as fate would have it, Jackson retook the reins of the new trilogy, which is perfectly fine by me, the guy made the previous three, he is the most qualified for the job. So did Jackson lose any steam? Or are his directorial abilities still in tip top shape?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). It tells the story of a younger Bilbo Baggins and his first encounter with “the one ring”. But it all starts rather small, with a visit from Gandalf the sorcerer who asks Bilbo to join him on an adventure to find a gold treasure that’s hidden within the abandoned Kingdom of Erebor. But this might prove to be harder than it sounds; the treasure and the abandoned city are both zealously protected by a giant fire breathing dragon named ‘Smaug’. If Bilbo accepts to join the adventure, he will be accompanied by 13 dwarfs and Gandalf himself. Will Bilbo accept to break with his pleasurable, peaceful life in order to help the dwarves regain their long lost kingdom and destroy the fire breathing dragon that took it from them?

I love what Jackson does with these movies, he brings Tolkien’s worlds to life in a way that makes me want to live in them. Yes sir, I wouldn’t mind living in ‘the Shire’ amongst happy Hobbits planning their next party. I’d love to live in those little Hobbit cabins filled with “all the comforts of home”. I mean, I love those warm looking little huts that the Hobbits live in. It seems like the Hobbits live extremely peaceful lives, jolly most of the time, planning parties with friends, sharing warmth and good food. What’s not to like about that life? Of course, The Shire might be a beautiful, peaceful place to live in, but around it, evil lurks, searching to disrupt peace and happiness. This is part of the theme of the film, how Bilbo has to break from his comfort zone and venture out into the world. He is an unlikely, reluctant hero, but will he think of others? Will he learn empathy? It’s the age old idea that when we break out of our comfort zone, that’s when things start happening, that’s when we start living our lives, that’s when the real adventure begins.

What makes this unexpected journey so pleasurable to watch is its characters and the world they inhabit.  I loved the 13 dwarves and their humor and their appetite and their singing, these dwarves are a very entertaining bunch of characters that bring the film to life. By the way this film reminded me a lot of Ron Howard’s Willow (1988) a film that borrowed heavily from Tolkien’s books;  you know, the kind of film where a bunch of characters are traveling down a strange and dangerous land, filled with unexpected perils, creatures and monsters galore. Orcs, giant rock creatures, giant wolves and spiders, and monsters that defy definition await Bilbo and the dwarves as they travel through Middle Earth. This is one of the things that I always love about fantasy films, the creatures we meet on the journey across the strange land. In that sense, this film is not so different from Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985) either, or any other fantasy film for that matter. This is a monster filled journey. 

As far as faithfulness to the book goes, I’d say that yeah, it’s faithful to the source material, but the filmmakers also throw in a lot of things that are not in the book because they want to tie in plot points from the previous films and bring in new plot points that will appear in future films, by the way, don’t know if you guys know it but two more films have already been filmed The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smug which will be released summer 2013 and The Hobbit: There and Back Again which will be released shortly thereafter. So this is the reason why on An Unexpected Journey, you will see characters talk about future perils and dangers on the horizon, alluding to, yet not really telling us what we can expect in future films. Some characters are introduced briefly, obviously meant to have bigger roles in future films.  I read The Hobbit and felt like they took some moments, placed them in this film, switched them around and put them in the second or third, it was quite obvious that this isn’t a chronologically accurate translation of the book. The filmmaker have switched events around to suit their storytelling, and added new characters so as to have a cohesiveness with the older films. But in the world of Hollywood, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. Very rarely do filmmakers translate a book onto film word for word; poetic license is common practice in film land. So if you’re expecting a word for word adaptation of the book, wake up from that dream. But fret not, the most important key moments are all there. You will see Bilbo solve riddles with Gollum, Bilbo getting the ring for the first time, the 13 dwarves arriving at Bilbo’s home and so forth…the key moments are there. If you ask me, you won’t feel disappointed if you’re a Lord of the Rings fan.

Ultimately I enjoyed this film very much. It feels like it belongs right there with the previous films. It was realized in such a similar fashion that you do feel like you’re visiting that same Middle Earth we visited years ago with the first three films and the film is entertaining because of its cast of lively characters. The visual effects are as perfect as they could be; I am personally amazed at what these filmmakers can achieve with computer effects, when done well. The expressions they can achieve on some of these characters are astonishing; Gollum is a wonder of animation in my book, he seems so alive in the film, yet he only exists within the confines of a computer! I guess the only down side to the film is how long it is, you might feel like they are padding things out, stretching that story so as to make three movies out of one book and make three times as much money, but then again epic length is almost a pre-requisite with these Lord of the Rings films, it’s almost become something we can expect from them. So, with very few bad things to say about it I say An Unexpected Journey was a satisfying and entertaining film with visual effects and storytelling of the highest caliber, without a doubt one of the best of 2012.

Rating: 5 out of 5