The Force

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2009)

Wars are bad investments in many ways. One of those, it seems is that a war — even a huge, long war — allows only one great "perspective movie."
WWII ="Catch 22"
Korean War = "M A S H"
Cold War = "Doctor Stangelove"
Vietnam = "Apocalypse Now."
I register this film as the one the world bought by going to war in Iraq. At three trillion dollars and the bending of a national soul for generations, it is pretty expensive. But it does well in my book. It matters a lot to me that we discover new places to observe ourselves. I believe that initially those places — if truly new in the narrative world — will seem both magical and humorous. These films will confuse; war is a confusing beast, but enlighten merely because of their existence.
As an experience, this movie had more laugh out loud moments for me than any film in recent memory. There is s seamless mix of cheap slapstick and profoundly sophisticated humor, and the mix tricks you into laughing at hard things, believing them to be simple ones.
Two things are notable. The first is that some substantial part of this is not just about wars, but about war movies, and specifically "Star Wars." Ewan plays the fellow who is folded into this movie: the guy who wrote it and is our enchanted on-screen narrator. He is discovered to have Jedi qualities. As his wide-eyed character discovers the secret program of psychic warriors, he himself becomes part of the war-joke by reference to the rather daft celebration of violence we have in movies, merely because it is cinematic.
The second cool thing is the way that imagination within the story reaches outside the story. There are the usual folds of course: a book written about an encounter that has an interwoven flashback history. But these folds have psychic insight that crosses the boundaries. This magical reality of insight allows the jokes to also cross the boundaries or folds, into the essence of the stupidities of this conflict and incidentally allowing that mix of satire and slapstick I mentioned. It is really quite brilliant: Spike Jonez sort of stuff.
The only real deficiency is the end, which is profoundly mis-imagined. I suppose that is appropriate, given the conflict itself. But you walk out remembering the failed end and not the successful views beforehand.
I do not know the book. It supposedly claims connection with "real facts." At least one is wrong: the research on psychics was in the 70s, and not connected with the New Earth Army. The psychic business was significant.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.