“Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
Two and a half hours of satisfying entertainment-even if you’re the one person on earth who’s never see a “Star Wars” film.
Writer/director Rian Johnson of “Looper” fame bridges the gap between the old and new with, fittingly, the late Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia leading the film in a bittersweet performance that sets the pace for the entire movie. I love that we get the gist of the plot in the opening crawl.
No brain twisting at all here. Just the bad guys vs. the Resistance, led by Princess Leia aided by a violet-haired Laura Dern taking the helm for a brief time. There are 3 very satisfying story lines: one involving Jedi-in-training Rey trying to convince Luke Skywalker to lead the Resistance – which would require him abandoning his monk-like existence on an idyllic mountain island filled with the adorable creatures, including the porgis.
Finn gets a new partner: the very spunky Kelly Marie Tran. Poe (Oscar Isaac) returns as the scrappy pilot who fights every authority figure- even his leader, Princess Leia. Rey has great scenes with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. Andy Serkis is phenomenal as the Supreme leader of the villains- though his character looks like a defaced Voldermort from “Harry Potter”.
There’s no way of proving the rumor that Princes William & Harry have a brief cameo as Storm troopers. Benicio De Toro all too briefly joins the film as a should-we-trust-him codebreaker.
When you go through the “Star Wars” checklist, “The Last Jedi” has ‘em all covered: great character; brilliant visuals; intriguing creatures and robots and fight scenes. Most amazingly, “The Last Jedi” not only doesn’t fall victim to the middle-movie-of-a-trilogy jinx, it’s one of the best of all the “Star Wars” movies.
3-and-a-half stars (a little too long for me)