Like “The Force Awakens,” only more so, this one is preoccupied with questions of legacy, legitimacy and succession, and includes multiple debates over whether one should replicate or reject the stories and symbols of the past.
The movie works equally well as an earnest adventure full of passionate heroes and villains and a meditation on sequels and franchise properties. This aspect adds a much-needed dash of self-deprecating humor (“The Force Awakens” was often a stitch as well, especially when Han Solo, Chewbacca, BB-8 and John Boyega’s James Garner-like hero/coward Finn were onscreen), but without going so meta that "The Last Jedi" turns into a smart-alecky thesis paper on itself. Snoke orders Kylo to “take off that ridiculous helmet,” Luke chastises an old friend for showing a nostalgic video by muttering “That was a cheap move,” and an early gag finds one of the heroes calling the bridge of a star destroyer and pretending to be stuck on hold. There’s a touch of “ Spaceballs” and “Robot Chicken” to some of the jokes. Sometimes "The Last Jedi" violates our expectations in a cheeky way that stops short of telling super-fans to get over themselves. This gimmick offers so much potential for drama and wry humor that you might wonder why nobody did it earlier. Lifting a bit of business glimpsed briefly in “ The Empire Strikes Back” and " Return of the Jedi," Johnson lets these all-powerful characters telepathically “speak” to each other across space as easily as you or I might Skype with a friend. Rey’s anguish at not knowing who her parents are and Kylo Ren’s trauma at killing his own father to advance toward his "destiny" literally as well as figuratively mirror each other. It happens rather often-this being a film preoccupied with grieving for the past and transcending it, populated by hounded and broken people who are afraid hope will be snuffed out. But whenever it allows a character to cry (or invites us to) the catharsis feels earned. “Jedi” does a better job than most sequels of giving the audience both what it wants and what it didn’t know it wanted. The movie leans hard into sentiment, most of it planted in the previous installment, some related to the unexpected passing of one of its leads (Fisher-thank goodness they gave her a lot of screen time here, and thrilling things to do). Old business is resolved, new business introduced.Īnd from scene to scene, Johnson gives veteran characters (Chewbacca and R2-D2 especially) and those who debuted in “The Force Awakens” enough screen time to showcase them at their best while also introducing compelling new faces (including a heroic maintenance worker, Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico a serene and tough vice admiral in the Resistance, played by Laura Dern a sort of “safecracker” character played by Benicio Del Toro). The story resolves in lengthy, consecutive climaxes which, refreshingly, don’t play like a cynical attempt to pad things out. Along that narrative backbone “The Last Jedi” strings what amount to several tight, often hastily devised mini-missions, each of which either moves the heroes (or villains) closer to their goals or blows up in their faces. Suffice to say that, despite being comprised of variations on things we’ve been experiencing directly (in “Star Wars” films) and indirectly (in “Star Wars”-inspired entertainment) since 1977, “The Last Jedi” still manages to maneuver in unexpected ways, starting with the decision to build a whole film around a retreat where the goal is not to win but to avoid being wiped out. The leathery old coot may not be a great bad guy-he’s too much of a standard-issue deep-voiced sadist, in a Marvel mode-but he is quite the chess player, and so is Johnson.
The New Order's Supreme Leader Snoke ( Andy Serkis plus CGI) has grand plans for both Rey and his Darth Vader-obsessed apprentice Kylo Ren ( Adam Driver). The first part of “The Last Jedi” cross-cuts between the remnants of our heroes’ ragtag fleet (led by the late Carrie Fisher’s Leia) running away from the First Order, aka the next-generation version of the Empire and Rey ( Daisy Ridley) on the aquatic planet Ahch-To ( gesundheit!) trying to convince the self-exiled Jedi master Luke Skywalker ( Mark Hamill, whose sandblasted face becomes truly iconic in close-ups) to overcome his grief at failing a group of young Jedi trainees and rejoin the Resistance.