Star Wars-The Last Jedi, Review: The Lost Jedi

George Lucas maintains that his Star Wars films were for kids. Back in the late 70s, when the trade-mark skewed angle intro rolling text greeted us as the film began, I was not a kid. Maybe the sensibilities of an Indian film-goer at 25 were akin to the school-kids in the West, but I loved what I saw. Since, I have seen most, if not all, the core movies and the spin-offs/anthologies, most of them likeable, but the 40^th anniversary release saw me pressing the time machine button repeatedly in an effort to turn teenager, and to find things to like. All my passwords were rejected, including ‘porg’. Then, somebody in the film’s shooting unit suddenly awoke, halfway into the 152 minutes screen-time, and fired all cylinders, only it was ‘too much too late’.

Porgs are small, owl-like creatures who inhabit Luke’s back of the beyond hideout, and hit it off with Chewbacca. They are cute, Disney-like, and designed by the writer-director of the film, Rian Johnson. Then there are variants of wolves, like living crystal chandeliers with fur. Talking of creatures, do these names give you a high? Banthas, Eopie, Varactyl, Tauntaun, Loth-Cat, Brezak, Nexu, Dianoga, Rancor, Caretakers, Yoda, ...you will find a few of them in The Last Jedi, and if they give you a real high, you are still 10-12 at heart.

A word about the visually dazzling crystolves--they inhabit a little-known planet, a metal one, so what seems like snow on the floor is actually salt. When the Resistance Force is discovered hiding there and has no choice but to launch a pre-emptive attack, they have only antiquated bi-plane ski-fliers as the launchers. The open cockpit machines rake up a red under-surface as they scrape along, and a burst of snow-like white smoke at the rear. Interesting, but what’s the point? The director’s nod to the snow-speeders of The Empire Strikes Back.

Time to tell you what’s the plot. Back in 2015, a scavenger woman called Rey, who had visions related to the Jedi, found the legendary Luke Skywalker in a self-imposed exile on an island. She now reaches out to him with his first light-saber, which was gifted to her. While Rey’s mission is to bring Luke back, as well as become a Jedi herself, First Order Supreme Leader Snoke is waiting for Kylo Ren to decimate the Resistance Force, led by Princess Leia, and her absent Jedi brother, Luke, who is in hiding. As usual, the Resistance is hopelessly out-numbered, out space-shipped and out-gunned.

While Luke explains to Rey in bits and pieces why he is reluctant to re-join the Force, the on-the-run force itself has to keep their handful of fighters alive, to fight another day. These moves include avoiding detection by their predators by travelling at the speed of light, leading suicide missions on enemy spacecraft, landing on a deserted former Force planet that is still armoured and stealing a password from the fortress-like enemy warship to send them off target. A crisis of leadership emerges, as an adventurous Commander is demoted to Captain and a woman is chosen to succeed him. An attack almost kills Leia, and prompts her brave-hearts to work out ways and means of dismantling the Kylo machine, which is in relentless pursuit. It is in this scenario that there is an apparition, a blast from the past. And no mark for guessing, for it couldn’t be any f-luke.

In his fourth feature, writer-director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom and the time travel crime drama, Looper), is playing with a legacy that wants him to be 17 at 43, he says. More like 12, not 17, says I, especially if one goes by the dialogue. “I want you to fire every single bullet we have at that man,” “I need someone to show me my place in all this” “The Supreme Leader is dead. Long live the Supreme Leader,” and the entire hogwash about “the energy that binds everything” or such, mouthed by Luke Skywalker, while imparting training to Rey, among his first lines in more than 30 years as Skywalker. When Yoda (voiced again by Franz Oz) appears out of the blue, after a track-panning shot across his back and asks Luke whether he has even read the scared Jedi texts that he so reveres, you agree with the humour of the situation. Problem is, there is so much patriotic bombast that you can never be sure. Is Johnson writing claptrap stuff to egg on the young ones who know little about the tale, or does he have his tongue in his cheek?

Supreme Leader Snoke is more than the hologram he was in The Force Awakens—he is a twisted, floating, gold-robed slime, with folds of skin across all his visible body. He could easily be in black, but here is where Johnson goes into Ming the Merciless (Villain from Flash Gordon) recall mode. Imposing and terrifying at first, he then resorts to repeating levitation tricks. Any twelve-year old could see through his veneer, but not so Kylo Ren. In a reversal of pompous ego clashes, he meets a tame end. One needed more of him, and more crafty of him, to infuse some excitement. Andy Serkis does the voice—a decent job. Canto Bight, the idea of a casino city, is already part of the Star Wars universe, and Johnson just sweeps through the sweepstakes of his Monte Carlo/Las Vegas. Some real glam and terrific virtual reality is generated here, and then the camera sweeps past all of it, as if afraid that any more lingering will invite a PG13 rating.

On the heels of Murder on the Orient Express, Daisy Ridley reprises her Force Awakens role as Rey. A naturally off-beat and expressive face, most of the time it has to look blank or hopeless. There is little chemistry between her love/nemesis Kylo Ren, Adam Driver (Lincoln, This is Where I Leave You, Logan Lucky). Driver dons a permanent expression of slightly scarred intense nothingness. The two think they understand each other while Snoke thinks he can manipulate both. Keep thinking.

As Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill is not the last Jedi. There is one more, currently under apprenticeship. But as the old war-horse who became a hermit on discovering that Jedis have a dark side to, Hamill is certainly the Lost Jedi. He has a group of Caretakers do his washing and cleaning, drinks the milk of giant birds and catches fish in the waters below with a 100 ft pointed rock. It is official that Hamill did not see eye to eye with Johnson on any part of his screen persona, and I am on Hamill’s side.

Benicio del Toro plays an undefined poker-faced character, who can do anything, from picking locks to decoding passwords to selling arms. Both his entry and exit are contrived. John Boyega as Finn, a former storm-trooper of the First Order who defected to the Resistance, is part of a handful of raiders who embark on a mission into enemy territory while Oscar Isaac is Poe Dameron, an X-wing fighter pilot in the Resistance who launches a foolish attack that kills many of his colleagues nut wants to redeem himself in the same mission. Both do a creditable job.

Besides Ridley, several other women have substantial roles too. Lupita Nyong'o as Maz Kanata, a pirate and long-time friend of Han Solo and Chewbacca (carry over from the last outing), Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma, the commander of the First Order's storm-troopers, Kelly Marie Tran (as Asian, as any Vietnamese) as Rose Tico, a member of the Resistance who saves Finn’s life at great risk, Laura Dern (Rambling Rose, Wild, Jurassic Park) as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, an officer in the Resistance who shows some true grit, and how. No Star Wars can be complete without the mention of C3PO and R2D2. What’s more, they have clones too.

As an aside, do practice sabre (never mind the correct spelling) rattling and light combat (pun intended)—these martial arts can win you the Supreme Leadership of a few galaxies...ah well, at least of one galaxy, far, far away.

Seen usually in a cape, Carrie Fisher as Leia keeps your mouth gaping open as she floats in space, trying to get a hold, after being seriously injured in a First Order attack on here craft. You want her to live. She does. In fact, in a later scene, she comes off her recuperating bed to literally wield a stick. Had she lived on in real life, she would have turned 61 on December 27.

Recalls writer-director Rian Johnson, “...she was singing show tunes and dancing with crew members. She was lovely.”

Rating: ** ½

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0CbN8sfihY