It has taken forty-two years but the story of the Resistance, begun in “Star Wars: A New Hope” comes to a conclusion in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” With an amped-up story, featuring flying Stormtroopers and much talk of destiny, confronting fear and inner turmoil, the ancient conflict between the Jedi and the Sith promises to deliver big box office, but will it satisfy old school fans who have waited a lifetime for the film’s final showdown?
The events of “Episode VII: The Last Jedi” and the passing of Carrie Fisher presented challenges that helped shape the plot of the new film, but you’ll get no spoilers here. I will say that old footage of Fisher as General Leia Organa from “The Force Awakens” appears alongside new work from Darth Vader’s grandson, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Jedi apprentice Rey (Daisy Ridley), Stormtrooper-turned-Resistance-fighter Finn (John Boyega), Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and the First Order’s General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson).
Add to that new characters like diabolical First Order Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), Spice Runners of Kijimi leader Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) and returning faves Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker (in what form I will not say) and you have a blended “Brady Bunch-style” family in space. That is, a complicated intergalactic family dynamic in which not everyone sees eye to eye.
Tasked with wrapping the Skywalker Saga up in a pretty bow director J.J. Abrams has made a film that is part fan service—many familiar faces come along for the ride—and part homage to the Original Trilogy. He replaces subtext with action, rehabilitates one character’s tarnished, cranky-old-man reputation (NO SPOILERS HERE) and essentially delivers the movie you expect.
Abrams knows there are no do overs on this one. “Do or do not; there is no try,” comes to mind. It is the wrap to one of the most popular and talked-about film franchises of all time. Expectations are high with the possibility of fan backlash ever present. Questions are answered—Rey’s parentage chief among them—quips are thrown, Chewbacca howls and star ships are blasted to Kingdom Come as “The Rise of Skywalker,” for better and for worse, replaces the nuanced take of Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” with the more tried and true Star Wars tale of nature vs nurture and good vs evil.
Jam packed with action and plot, “The Rise of Skywalker” gets bogged down with exposition and tying up loose ends. Worse, it often drifts from the thing that made “Star Wars” great in the first place—the characters. They’re all present and accounted for but are often overshadowed by the whiz bang pacing and over-abundance of story.
Having said that, the film’s final third, the payoff to the Saga, hits several emotional high points. It’s the end of the Saga and, therefore (NO SPOILERS HERE JUST THE FACTS) the final appearances of several members of the original cast. Their exits are handled with sensitivity and should generate a sniffle or two from hard core fans.
The core of the movie is the anguished dynamic between Rey and Kylo. The push and pull between their logical vs biological family commitments is the most compelling part of the story. It also provides for several of the film’s most visually interesting scenes, including a climatic lightsaber battle on the wreckage of the Death Star.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” ticks a lot of boxes for fans but—again, no spoilers but be careful—the mythic battle of good vs evil, of finding balance in the Force, that has fuelled the franchise for forty plus years, was really only going to resolve itself in one way. As such the metaphysical struggle is about the journey and not as much about the actual conclusion.
Richard and CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan do a spoiler-free review of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
It has taken forty-two years but the story of the Resistance, begun in “Star Wars: A New Hope” comes to a conclusion in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” With an amped-up story featuring flying Stormtroopers and much talk of destiny, confronting fear and inner turmoil, the ancient conflict between the Jedi and the Sith promises to deliver big box office, but will it satisfy old school fans who have waited a lifetime for the film’s final showdown?
This week on the Richard Crouse Show: A long time ago at a radio station far, far away… Now that the Skywalker saga is coning to an end Richard takes you back to the beginning of the phenomenon. In new interviews C-3PO actor Anthony Daniels talks about playing the character for the last time and Joonas Suotamo talks about playing the iconic Wookie character Chewbacca, and what it is like wearing the fur suit for ten hours a day.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.
Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed!
Richard speaks with “Rise of the Skywalker” star Joonas Suotamo about playing the iconic Wookie character Chewbacca, and what it is like wearing the fur suit for ten hours a day.
Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Link coming soon)
Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!:
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.
Click HERE to catch up on shows you might have missed!
Richard and CP24 anchor Nneka Elliot talk about the weekend’s three big releases, “Independence Say: Resurgence,” with Jeff Goldblum, “The Shallows”with Blake Lively and “Free State of Jones” with Matthew McConaughey.
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel to talk about the big releases in theatres, including “Independence Say: Resurgence,” with Jeff Goldblum, “The Shallows”with Blake Lively, “Free State of Jones” with Matthew McConaughey and the weird and wonderful “The Neon Demon.”
There is an interesting story to be told of the exploits of rebellious Mississippi farmer Newton Knight but “Free State of Jones” is not it.
The “action”—mostly raggedly bearded men sitting and speaking in lilting Podunk accents—takes place over the course of fourteen tumultuous years, from 1862 to ’76. When we first meet Knight (Matthew McConaughey) he’s a war nurse doing triage for Confederate soldiers blown apart by musket and canon fire. After a young relative is killed he goes AWOL, fed up with the brutality and the Confederate Army’s illegal pillaging of locals for supplies. Hiding out with runaway slaves he fights back, becoming a force for change and a champion of freedom for all men.
Intertwined in the narrative are the rise of the KKK, fixed elections, burned churches, surprise attacks and much more. Not content to tell the sprawling Civil War story “Free State of Jones” intermittently jumps forward 85 years to tell the story of a relative of Knight who was prosecuted in Mississippi for the crime of being 1/16 black and marrying a white women.
“Free State of Jones” aims to be an epic but in biting off more story than it can chew ends up a didactic mess, bereft of emotional content or revealing historical perspective. It feels as if it was shot as a mini-series and cleaved down to feature length. Parts seem to be missing, and by that I mean the interesting parts.
A surprise attack that is heavily featured in the film’s trailers should have been a rousing showstopper but instead comes and goes in the blink of an eye, barely raising the movie’s pulse rate. Better are the opening moments that effectively, if grimly, display the realities of face-to-face combat.
McConaughey has been on a remarkable career upswing of late but it feels like the McConaissance has hit a bump in the road. He’s less a character than a saviour, an empathic speechifying rebel with rotten teeth who embodies all that is righteous. He kills dogs and people and is a bigamist but he’s also apparently on the side of the angels and that is all we really get to know about him.
More interesting and human is Mahershala Ali as Moses, an emancipated slave who joins forces with Knight.
“Free State of Jones” has its rebellious heart mostly in the right place. In our time of continued racial unrest it is important to have a historical perspective but this movie can really only be described as problematic in some of the tone deaf ways it approaches its subject. For instance a speech that begins with, “Everybody is just somebody else’s n-word,” is meant to be rousing, a call to solidarity, but clumsily equates conscription with the plight of people taken from their homes, shipped to a new country and enslaved. Like the rest of the movie it means well but falls very flat. I gave it one star because it has aspirations to greatness and fails on all accounts. It’s done in by its own ambition.
It has taken forty-two years but the story of the Resistance, begun in “Star Wars: A New Hope” comes to a conclusion in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” With an amped-up story, featuring flying Stormtroopers and much talk of destiny, confronting fear and inner turmoil, the ancient conflict between the Jedi and the Sith promises to deliver big box office, but will it satisfy old school fans who have waited a lifetime for the film’s final showdown?
