"The Last Jedi" hits a few wrong turns, but delivers a fair movie experience

Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Director: Rian Johnson

Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley

Verdict:

Director Rian Johnson ushers in Round 2 of the new Star Wars trilogy, and while the returning cast - both old and new - give it their all in an admirable showing, the strange pacing, weak side-plots, and generally off characterizations of some beloved franchise staples dull the enthusiasm a bit, with only its intelligent deconstruction of the Star Wars legacy to lift it above mediocrity.

In depth:

The Star Wars brand has seen a lot of ups and downs since The Force Awakens was released two years ago.  The loss of Carrie Fisher was a tremendous blow, which will obviously leave lasting reverberations for the films to come.  Meanwhile, though the new trilogy’s first film was largely a success - or at least, silenced fears that Disney would completely wreck the franchise - there was still heard the faint sounds of fan grumbling over the supposed stark changes it brought to the beloved series.  A female lead, a black male protagonist, and the surprise death of arguably the franchise’s most popular character all left die-hard saber-swingers floundering in the dark side on to what to expect in the future.  And now, The Last Jedi brings everything full circle, for while the first movie teased at changes to come, this one nearly deconstructs, or at least questions, some of the standard tropes that have been endemic to the enterprise since Luke first stepped out into the Tatooine sunset.  Everything from heroic machismo, to the pedestal treatment of “legends,” to even the notion of a “chosen one” all get a pretty bad spanking throughout the film.  Fine, fine, you might be saying.  But is it any good?  Well, yes and no.  But mostly, yes.

Unlike previous films, The Last Jedi seems to pick up almost immediately where we left off - an odd pacing choice, admittedly, though it doesn't rattle the cage too much.  The Resistance, lead by iron lady General Leia Organa (the late, great Carrie Fisher) is forced to evacuate their base before a First Order fleet lead by General and all-around slimeball, Hux (Domhnall Gleeson).  Ace pilot Poe Dameron, played by Oscar Isaac, leads a successful but horribly costly counter assault on a First Order Dreadnought before jumping to hyperspace.  Meanwhile, Rey (Ridley) has finally caught up to the elusive Jedi Master and living legend Luke Skywalker - played, as always, by the incomparable Mark Hamill - only to discover, to her horror as well as ours, that the former hero has become a burned-out cynic, closed off to the Force and unwilling to resurrect anything resembling the Jedi.  As Rey struggles to overcome his walls and learn more about her gift, first film favorite Finn (John Boyega) wakes from his coma to discover that the Resistance escape ship was being tracked, ushering a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the First Order.  With Leia out of commission during a surprise attack and the Resistance leadership in confusion, Finn joins forces with his old friend Poe and new ally Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) to find a way to break free of the Order’s grip.  And all the while, the ever-conflicted Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) wrestles with murdering his father and his tenuous place beside Supreme Leader Snoke, and in the process, forms a link with Rey as they work through their common concerns of belonging and destiny.  Where all of these ambitions collide will witness both the rise of a new power, and an altered course for the destiny of the Jedi.

Compared to most other movies in the franchise, the Last Jedi really plays fast and loose with its many inherited tropes.  No doubt a huge part of Star Wars’s monumental popular appeal lies in how it modernized ancient mythic archetypes and braised them in a cool, sci-fi coating.  The traditional hero - his (and it’s almost always “his”) call to adventure, the escape from the belly of the beast, the final apotheosis as the hero realizes he’s the Chosen One and redeems the world - have all been staples of the traditional Star Wars order, and indeed, remain the source of its undeniable power.  The Last Jedi pushed open the cracks in this formula left by the Force Awakens: Poe’s hot-headed heroism causes more harm than good; the last-ditch Indy ploy dripping with macho adventuring fails spectacularly; and the “Chosen One” seems, at this point, anything but.  Even the idea of the conflicted young villain is mercilessly deconstructed, and provides the film with its most effective sense of suspense in its entire run.  This is a controversial element for some fans, but for me, at least, it shows a great deal of creativity, and enhanced my experience quite a bit.

Even if you're not a fan of Disney taking a swipe at a few Campbellian sacred cows, the A-list cast goes a long way to sweetening the pill a bit.  With this being their second go around, the actors by now have all settled into a comfortable groove with their characters, and it shows.  Ridley and Boyaga are the real stand outs, with Rey and Finn stealing the show in this new leg of the franchise.  Rey has bloomed into a more nuanced character, with a smaller chip on her shoulder and a more appealing vulnerability born of recognizing her link to the Force and her desire to learn more of her past and her place in the grand scheme of things.  Finn’s delightful oscillation between practical cowardice and flashes of the utmost heroism marches on, and he even forges a distinctive edge over the course of the film, culminating in an epic battle against his own personal nemesis.  Finn’s everyman quality had been my high point in the preceding movie, and while much of his screen time was spent floundering in a bloated arc, he was still a delight through every moment of it.  Though Kylo Ren has been a divisive character since his introduction, I’ve always liked his take on how a young man can slip into evil through a muddled mixture of fear, ambition, and insecurity.  And of course, we must all bow to the great Carrie Fisher in her final performance - even if she spent about half of it in a virtual coma.

Still, even with all this praise, some bizarre narrative choices result in a somewhat lopsided showing for the story as a whole.  One drawback to taking a deconstructive turn in a popular series is that everything comes together in a more intentional - and hence, calculating - fashion.  The humor felt too pressed upon and unnatural at times; the “twists” were beaten to death by foreshadowing; and all the many plot points came across as blatantly calculating, and not as organic as the original series or even its decidedly mixed-bag predecessor.  This is the underlying rot under every shaky foundation of the movie, and explains quite a bit of its other follies.  The need to intentionally break open the hero archetype laid down by Han Solo has warped Poe into an intensely unlikable figure - hot-headed for no good reason, secretive, and resorting even to mutiny to enforce what he wrongheadedly believes to be the “right thing to do.”  More frustrating is that despite this, and the fact that he is directly or indirectly responsible for about half of the deaths for the Resistance (no, really), his actions are waved away in an oddly enforced status quo.

But perhaps the most devastating change for many fans is where they left the Skywalker legacy.  Now, granted, I can’t fully jump on board with the usual fan critiques; the central aspect of the Force, after all, is that it should belong to everyone, and wrapping everything around one bloodline makes a mockery of that lesson.  But reducing Luke Skywalker to a shell of who he was off screen can seem a lot like character derailment, and it doesn’t help that the film grants relatively few positive depictions of masculinity.  While I was ultimately satisfied with Luke’s character arc and understood (and appreciated) the lessons he imparted to Rey concerning a balanced view of the Jedi legacy, seeing him morph into a bitter cynic and viciously dismiss Jedi history as one of “failure, hypocrisy, and hubris ” with very little in canon to back it up can feel quite jarring without deeper reflection.

There are a couple of other things to pick at, if you’re really looking for it.  Finn’s side plot to find a hacker for a harebrained scheme to break the First Order’s tracker was a bloated and unpleasant affair, and not even Finn’s charm could surmount its plodding pace.  A major part of that objectionable little detour was new character Rose, who was a bit of a mixed bag in general.  While her initial scenes and sad loss of her sister at the very beginning lend her some potential and pathos, she quickly loses my interest as the subplot drags on and she fades increasingly to the background - relegated, it seems, to the slum of last-minute love interests and potential romantic plot tumors which come out of freaking nowhere.  Even beyond the sideplot, though, the film seemed to drag on longer than it needed to; there were several points before the finale where the film could have ended but didn't. Instead, it just ambles on, diffusing the tension and making me check my watch every five minutes.

And yet, despite these flaws and their seeming gross weight on the scales versus the Last Jedi's more positive attributes, this was still a worthwhile film.  While I understand that flirting with genre deconstruction can be quite unnerving in such a beloved series, I believe it was handled tastefully as a whole.  We don’t know what the next film will hold; Fisher’s demise put the ultimate monkey wrench in any plans Disney had for her and the film.  But Star Wars now stands at the crux of a cinematic crossroads: will it continue down the arduous road to deconstruction, or will it rebuild itself into something more akin to the original series?  Either path can be fraught with difficulty, but as long as it keeps its balance, it may be worth the effort.

Grade: B-

"Power Rangers": current confusions and future directions for a franchise-to-be

When Saban’s Power Rangers reboot stormed into theaters a few weeks back, I met it with an almost glacial indifference.  I don't hate the franchise, and I never did; I grew up during its heyday, and even I offered my share of terrible karate mimicry along with my nerdy peers back when it was all the rage.  But puberty had scoured all the morphing out of me, and for a long while, I paid no heed to its numerous derivatives.  My misgivings only grew after seeing the movie's trailer, which gave off the disjointed self-awareness so typical of children's properties that make a stab at the "darker and edgier" route.  Still, I walked in expecting little more than a harmless trip down nostalgia lane, filled with Super Sentai camp and buckets of cheese, and framed by a superficial mantle of "relevance."  

But walking out, I'm honestly not sure what I watched. I can't say Power Rangers is bad per se,but it is certainly a film asunder, blowing its energies and potential in a confused effort to appeal to multiple tastes and maturity levels.  The tumult wobbles back and forth throughout the movie, channeling The Breakfast Club and its teenage angst one minute, before indulging in wacky, Ferris Bueller-esque night time romps al la Jason and Billy the next, and then bringing it all home with the now standard superhero assemblages seen in the MCU.  And all the while, we're exposed to a strange comedy chop suey, with adult-leaning jokes embedded in campy, adolescent humor ripped straight from the days when Jason David Frank reigned as undisputed king of the spandex brigade.  

It’s Crowded in Here…

The problems with Power Rangers began before the movie even came out.  Back when the original series and first film premiered, big screen superhero options for children were virtually nonexistent.  The exposure most of us had to the DC and Marvel worlds beyond the comics was through their sanitized and poorly animated treatments on the boob tube, so the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers was a unique treat for restless kids starved of high-flying martial arts action in the flesh.  But those days are long gone, and the advent of the MCU and its host of rounded characters and sensible plot lines gives us little reason to long for the quaint nonsense of past Power Ranger glory.  It doesn’t help that standards of what are considered "acceptable" levels of violence and maturity have shifted considerably since the 1990s.  It's almost laughable to modern audiences to discover that the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers incited such a row among parents when it first came out due to its supposedly violent content.  With stylized hyper-violence now endemic in PG and PG-13 hero films, the conflicts so assaulted before look positively feeble in comparison.  While I don’t fully agree with Variety critic Owen Gleiberman’s damning assessment of the movie, it’s hard to argue with his central claim: with so many options on the table these days, children no longer need “safe, lame and pandering” heroes to occupy them.

Who’s movie is it, anyway?

But Gleiderman does drop one other, largely unexamined hint.  We shouldn’t assume that Power Rangers was strictly for kids, and certainly the theater I attended was packed with adults who, like me, still remember halcyon days of reenacting the zords and Kung Fu action with exuberant delight.  These kids were now parents themselves, bringing their little ones along on nostalgia high to relive their own joys.  And therein lies the problem; Power Rangers didn't do a good enough job communicating who, exactly, it was targeting.  Children?  Too many mature themes and veiled masturbation jokes - and at least for the Russians, lesbians.  The adults?  While the nostalgia crowd swarmed in rank and file, I doubt even they knew what to expect from this reboot.  The confusion is very evident in the film’s execution, where the aforementioned mood swings threw off the narrative flow quite a bit.  While the awkwardly cobbled together display did little to beat down the most stalwart devotees (moviegoers gave Power Rangers, on average, a far higher rating than critics) minus an adjustment made for lowered expectations, Saban’s morphing quintet remained locked in a centrifugal trap, their potential wasted in a fruitless attempt to go everywhere at once.

Silver Linings

My gentle condemnations probably wouldn’t amount to much if this was the end of the line.  However, since Saban insists on spreading his reboot into a six-movie story arc despite the relatively lackluster return in theaters, this might not be the last time we see Jason and the gang karate chopping evil on the big screen.  Is there any hope, then, to see the series rise above superhero mediocrity?  Perhaps, and the key lies in the film’s tight-knit cast and how they skew the usual Power Rangers formula.  In most forms in the franchise, our leading heroes are generally Grade A all-Americans - proficient in martial arts, mostly well-liked, and seated firmly in the high school hierarchy, with every stereotype that implies.  Sure, there is "diversity," in a manner of speaking, but it's literally skin deep - expressed in ethnicity, but not in individual lived experiences.  But things are different this time around; our would-be Rangers are the quintessential rag-tag group of misfits, each with their own burdens to bear.  Jason is a fallen hero, now condemned to house arrest; Kimberly is a cyberbully, and Billy, in a surprisingly convincing portrayal, is autistic - a superhero first, along with Becky G’s Trini, a girl who, if not outright lesbian, is certainly questioning her sexuality.  Last but not least is Zack, who in a welcomed departure from his 90s Cool Black Friend depiction, is a bilingual Chinese-American, saddled with a sick mother who is the fount of his outlandish and at times unstable behavior.  It’s easy to criticize how Power Rangers handled this - the schizophrenic implementation, the lopsided execution - but you can’t deny that the very ideas themselves are groundbreaking.  Even with the diversity of hero flicks out these days, the trials and tribulations of teen heroes - not counting Spider-Man - are still rare on the big screen, and this push for “relevance,” which too often ends in abysmal failure, may point a way through the swamp of camp and string cheese miring the Power Rangers franchise as a whole.

So What Now?

So how can the future films avoid the pitfalls of confusion and contradiction that plague this first entry?   Keep the focus on the kids and their struggles.  The mood should be kept light, to resist the false luster of escalating angst in the name of “art.”  But they should respect the issues which arise naturally from such an eclectic mix of teenagers, as opposed to discarding them to the dustbin of mere superficial diversity.  How far can they take Trini’s burgeoning sexuality?  Will Billy’s autism ever become an actual issue to deal with on the field?  Does Kimberly still have a bit of the mean girl in her, and could this taint her interactions with her newfound friends?  All this and more are ripe for exploration, highlighting the difficult transitions we all face as we graduate from youth to adulthood - learning to get along, opening up to others, and collaborating into a functional unit much greater than the sums of our flaws and insecurities.

Is this a pretentious aspiration, especially in a franchise associated with kicking aliens in the face?  Maybe.  I say it's worth an attempt ether way, otherwise don't bother making characters with that degree of depth in the first place. While this might run the risk of alienating fans who wish only to relive past glories of martial madness across galaxies, it may yet open the door to a longer lived and, perhaps, more satisfying film series.