Okay movie, but not an epic

Rating: 6/10 (3 February 2016)

"Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back" is the second film from the "Star Wars" franchise and the fifth in terms of chronology of the contents depicted in there. It was directed by Irvin Kershner over 35 years ago and had some success with the Academy Awards, even if not nearly as much as the first film. And I myself must say that I found it not better than the first (even if the IMDb rating says so), but also not much worse. Once again, it delivers especially on the visual side in terms of sets, cinematography and special effects while coming a bit short in terms of the story. The characters are all fairly memorable though, the humans and the others. There are many many characters that appeared in the first film already, for example Obi Wan Kenobi is even back for one scene, but there are also some interesting new additions, most of all the uber-famous Yoda. And Darth Vader is the main villain in here while being just one of several villains in the first film. A great light saber sequence is included here too.
I said that I was not too overwhelmed by the story and that implies the plot as a whole, but also minor scenes and references. One example would be Calrissian's character obviously being totally scared of Vader for almost the entire film and then, completely out of nowhere, he suddenly has no fear anymore and joins the resistance fighters. Not very realistic character development. I also did not like the references in terms of mathematical probability early on. This makes it look really unrealistic that Skywalker survived or that Han Solo managed to control the spacecraft some time later.
All in all, it was an okay watch at best and the film has several lengths, starts off nicely with the snow planet scenes, gets worse, but gains some momentum again towards the end. However, I believe that they could have done without roughly 20 minutes and kept this movie at 105 minutes instead of over two hours. You have to be very generous to appreciate this film as a whole as there were more than just a few weaknesses to it. Still, the good moments make somewhat up for it, even if the film never reached real greatness. Not once. Nonetheless, I will be generous and give it a cautious thumbs-up, especially for science fiction fans, which I am probably not really.