Lows and Highs

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2017)

The Not-Too-Revealing-Summary: Large, bad guy army tries to squash rag-tag rebel army. Desperate and longshot guerrilla style missions give the underdogs hope and viewers an opportunity to better know the characters.
The Not-Too-Revealing-Review:
The Lows: Editing, Slapstick, Creature CGI, New Casting, Side Plots. Editing: Star Wars has always been choppy. The transitions between scenes are something you could easily work into your Powerpoint presentation, and the blocks are so obviously blocks that the fact of editing comes to the forefront instead of remaining a behind-the-scenes technicality. This was the worst edited Star Wars movie - ever. The choppiness and blockiness was exaggerated by snippets of awkward dialogue and frames of irrelevant people being blown up or pushing buttons. Adult viewers know that this is not the way to make movies today, Star Wars geeks know that this is homage, but everyone can tell that it was done badly. Paying homage to the original is a staple for reboots, but you have to master those technical aspects for it to work. It didn't here. Slapstick: Everyone likes a good laugh. There were a few - perhaps even several - in The Last Jedi. For every good one however there were three flops. These were all the worse, in many cases, because the editors planned the moment as a humorous one, made the joke central to the scene, and then left some seconds free afterward for the expected laugh. When these failed, it was especially awkward. Even when they worked, it was obvious how contrived the moment was. The best laughs were those that weren't centered, that moved forward quickly leaving the viewer surprised as well as humored. Creature CGI: Way too many new creatures. Way too edited. The contrast between those creatures that were wearing suits and makeup and those completely generated by computer were stark, so stark that it often felt like I was watching movies from two different eras at the same time. Like the editing, CGI creatures are a place where their generation should not come to mind, but it was a distraction in this film. New Casting: Vice Admiral Holdo was awful. Cringing, there-must-be-something-up-their-sleeve mind-boggingly bad where the only possible explanation was that it was foreshadowing. And maybe it was, but it foreshadowed all the wrong conclusions.DJ was awesome. Far too awesome, in fact. His very presence can't be lent to a minor character when the acting and personality are that good. Side Plots: Okay, let's put it out there. These were dumb. One excursion was largely a waste of fantasy potential and the other gratuitous and mindless. So many moments and dramas were strained - people making dumb decisions, caricatured villains, implausible traps, and contradictory sacrifices and lessons. This was both badly written and badly envisioned.
The Highs: Acting, Character Development, Cinematography, Second Half of the Film. Acting and Character Development:Rey and Finn are excellent characters. They have contagious strengths and very real weaknesses. The respective actress and actor live these roles, and it is a genuine pleasure to watch them. Rose and Luke also had great performances. What is surprising about the film is that it was a very good drama first and a satisfying action-adventure second. The nemesis-turns-into-something-else relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren is without a doubt the highlight of the drama. Cinematography: Forget the space action sequences, aircraft, and weapons. There were some stunning scenes from the secluded island - the dark place hauntingly so. The sets were passing at best and distracting at worst, but the aerial views and more artistic shots of nature held a lot of value. Then, of course, there's that heavily edited CGI battle scene that everyone is going to be talking about and that all are going to remember. It might have been dumb, but it was breathtakingly beautiful. Second Half of the Film: I can understand reviewers and critics who watched the first half of the movie and had decided that it was bad. It was made for families and children and with such poor justifications for the taken upon dangers and decisions that one could easily let that ruin the rest of the film. Once you get past those cringe-worthy attempts at humor, past the awkward supporting actor performances, and let yourself get taken up into the dramas of the end, one can find a very good movie in here. This is where the drama and character development met the action adventure. No longer separate tracks, distractions, or filler, things came together in the movie. We viewers understood who was fighting for what and why, and we cared. The action scenes become not simple additions to the story but culminations of long-walked paths. There is both a very good movie in here and a very bad one. Wearing blinders helps one to ignore those mind-numbingly dumb moments and focus on the personal story arcs of the main characters.