Star Wars, Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker: Breathless adventure

Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action and violence, and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

I’ve no doubt fans will be dazzled by this long-awaited concluding chapter in George Lucas’ original nine-part serial — how could they not be? — but this film will resonate even more strongly with those who were between the ages of 8 and 25 back when the original Star Wars debuted in May 1977.

With the remnants of the massive Death Star II towering against the pounding waves of
an oceanic moon, young Jedi Knight Rey (Daisy ridley, left) and the evil Kylo Ren
(Adam Driver) duel to the death with their light-sabers.

The sense of closure here will be far more emotionally powerful for that group. 

One generation of Harry Potter fans grew up with the books (1997-07) and subsequent films (2001-11), but followers of The Force have lived with these characters for 42 years. For those folks, the dramatic impact of this new film’s final 15 minutes defies easy discussion. Suffice it to say, we get laughter, tears, anxiety, relief, regret and — most crucially — satisfaction.

Along with the knowledge — bottom lines being what they are — that we certainly haven’t seen the last of this galaxy far, far away (as the new Disney streaming service’s The Mandalorian demonstrates).

Getting to this film’s finale, however, is almost too much to endure at times. Goodness, but our heroes suffer!

Director J.J. Abrams wisely plays to the faithful with this ninth “original series” installment, following the pell-mell serial format that Lucas established four decades ago. The best Star Wars entries always have relied on the “divide and conquer” approach, sending individual characters on crucial sidebar missions, while the core plotline inexorably advances toward an appalling outcome. This prompts cross-cutting between events, simultaneously building suspense in numerous directions.

We hit the ground running, as always, and the pace remains frantic. Everything is propelled by John Williams’ exciting orchestral score, blending long-familiar character themes with plenty of fresh cues.

Our current heroes — led primarily by apprentice Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley), reformed mercenary Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and former First Order Stormtrooper-turned-good guy Finn (John Boyega) — learn that, horror of horrors, the “defeated” Galactic Empire’s evil-evil-evil Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, returning to the role) still lives. Whether clone or spirit resurrected by foul Sith magic, the result is the same: Palpatine intends to resume his plan to dominate the universe.

To that end, he has overseen the construction of a massive fleet of First Order warships equipped with planet-killing cannons. Any world unwilling to be dominated … will be obliterated.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Deserves to drown

Pacific Rim Uprising (2018) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for relentlessly dumb and noisy sci-fi violence, and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

Godzilla has a lot to answer for.

So does Guillermo del Toro, basking in the reflected glow of the Academy Awards now resting on his mantel.

When an entire squadron of giant robots goes berserk, only a handful of cadets — notably
Amara (Cailee Spaeny, and do note her wind-swept hair) and Jake (John Boyega) — are
in a position to prevent Earth's complete annihilation. Can they succeed, against such
overwhelming odds? Is there really any question?

Because we must remember that he brought us Pacific Rim, back in 2013. And if that film hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t now be suffering through its soulless, brain-dead sequel.

It’s important to note that del Toro always has had an affinity for grandiose monster movies, which he demonstrated with his two Hellboy entries, and even as far back as 1997’s Mimic. (Needless to say, The Shape of Water also is a monster movie.) Del Toro has a knack for finding — and somehow making credible — the emotional center of even the craziest premise; he also knows how to add just the right amount of humor to a formula that requires an equally precise blend of tragedy and triumph.

In short, we care about the characters in del Toro’s films, human or otherwise. We get involved.

Nothing — and nobody — in Pacific Rim Uprising elicits even a shred of interest. This isn’t a film; it’s a global commodity, assembled with calculated coldness by corporate bean-counters ticking all the little boxes.

Multi-national characters? Check. Disillusioned soldier who finds his inner hero? Check. Plucky young girl? Check. Eye-rollingly dumb dialog intended to facilitate bonding? Check. Jealousy in the ranks? Check. The destruction of vast cityscapes? Check.

First-time big-screen director Steven S. DeKnight can demand — and obtain — the most whoppingly, prodigiously colossal beasties and human-powered mechanical warriors that today’s special-effects money can buy, but the result has no more emotional significance than we got from watching two guys in rubber suits bash each other, while striding amid the balsa-wood cities of 1960s Godzilla flicks.

The reason? This film’s script — credited to DeKnight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder and T.S. Nowlin — is strictly from hunger. Not content merely to be a perfect example of the idiot plot — which lurches from one scene to the next, only because each and every character behaves like an idiot at all times — it also boasts some of the clunkiest, most laughably atrocious dialog ever conceived.

With only a few exceptions, the performances are stiff and unpersuasive, the line deliveries so wooden, they warp. And the landscape-devastating battle sequences go on, and on, and on, and on ... as if DeKnight hopes to win us over by sheer brute force.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi — Galaxy-spanning excitement

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.15.17

The newest installment in the Star Wars franchise certainly doesn’t lack ambition.

At 152 minutes, The Last Jedi is by far the longest chapter in George Lucas’ originally conceived three-trilogy ennealogy. (I had to look that one up.)

Having been sent on a desperate mission to the obscenely opulent gambling planet of
Canto Bight, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and Finn (John Boyega) have decidedly different
views on how to locate their quarry.

It’s also the grimmest, with an emphasis on the word “Wars” that echoes last year’s Rogue One. The middle chapter of a trilogy inevitably is the most dire, as was established in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. This new film’s solely credited writer/director, Rian Johnson, clearly took that precedent seriously. We hit the ground running, with few pauses for breath.

But they’re important pauses. Johnson understands the value of dramatic highs and lows, and — most crucially — of leavening dire doings with well-timed dollops of humor.

When last we left our various heroes, the Nazi-esque First Order — having risen from the ashes of the evil Galactic Empire — was eradicating the peaceful New Republic, world by world. Aside from wishing to dominate the universe, the evil Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) employed the Darth Vader-esque Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to seek out and destroy all traces of the Jedi order.

The plucky Rey (Daisy Ridley), imbued with the mysterious Force, has journeyed to the remote oceanic planet Ahch-To, in order to find and train with the long missing Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Former Stormtrooper-turned-good guy Finn (John Boyega), badly injured during a lightsaber battle with Kylo Ren, lies comatose in a medical stasis bed. Impetuous pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and his faithful droid, BB-8, joined the Resistance forces commanded by Gen. Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), as they celebrated the destruction of First Order’s massive Starkiller Base.

If all this seems a voluminous information dump, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg; subplots and sidebar characters reference everything back to 1977’s very first film. Four decades later, it’s extremely difficult for new viewers to jump into this saga, and even longtime fans may need an Internet refresher course.

(This being the era of binge viewing, I suppose the tried-and-true are expected to power-watch the previous seven films before embracing this one. That’s asking a bit much.)

Detroit: City in flames

Detroit (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong violence, dramatic intensity, pervasive profanity and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.4.17

Very few dramatic films — as distinguished from documentaries — have left me feeling nauseous, in response to the monstrous behavior of human beings.

Schindler’s List is one; that was a quarter-century ago.

Racist cop Philip Krauss (Will Poulter, center left) gleefully takes charge of the lit-fuse
"interrogation" of half a dozen wholly innocent Algiers Motel residents, using the greater
Detroit riot as an excuse to terrorize and torture them.

Detroit is the most recent; that was a few nights ago.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal both took home well-deserved Academy Awards for 2009’s The Hurt Locker; they re-teamed for 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty, their equally mesmerizing portrayal of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, which concluded with his death during a Navy SEAL raid in May 2011.

The latter film lost some of its luster — and probably a few Oscars — due to political sniping over the accuracy of the CIA’s depicted use of torture (an accusation that still seems specious, given that relevant documents remain classified). That controversy tainted a film that deserves better recognition both as a nail-biting drama, and for having gotten “the important stuff” right.

Bigelow and Boal may run into the same problem with Detroit, which would be an even greater tragedy. Although their riveting new film shines a necessary spotlight on a grievously under-remembered tragedy in American history — the so-called 12th Street Riot, which consumed Detroit, Mich., from July 23-27, 1967 — Boal’s script suffers somewhat from tunnel vision, differs at times from long-established eyewitness accounts, and in one conspicuous case succumbs to flat-out speculation.

We experienced this problem with 2000’s The Perfect Storm, which detailed the real-world fate of the fishing vessel Andrea Gail, lost at sea during the nor’easter that developed in late October 1991. The paradox was obvious: Since everybody on board died, nobody could possibly know what actually happened during the boat’s final hours. That didn’t diminish the film’s impact, but one had to acknowledge the contrivance of its entire third act.

Bigelow and Boal obviously are aware of the liberties taken here, and concerned enough to conclude their film with a text block that acknowledges “necessary” extrapolation.

I hope that’s good enough, because it would be awful if Detroit were caught up in petty arguments over detail, thereby obscuring the incontrovertible, big-picture degree to which clearly innocent, mostly black civilians were brutalized by blatantly racist, thuggish white cops during a particularly ghastly incident triggered during the riot.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens — Everything old is new again

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.18.15

No question about it: J.J. Abrams definitely is one with The Force.

The writer/director/producer who so smartly revived the Star Trek franchise has done the same with Star Wars.

With nasty First Order storm troopers hot on their heels, Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John
Boyega) do their best to survive long enough to get a valuable little droid into the hands of
good-guy Resistance fighters.

After the most recent trilogy prompted a blend of disappointment, disgust and outright hostility — Jar Jar Binks, anyone? — fans could be excused the raised-eyebrow wariness that initially greeted news of fresh doings in that galaxy far, far away. But maybe there really is something to the all-pervasive Force, because — for several months now — we’ve been part of an escalating global awareness that Something Great was in the offing.

Indeed.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t merely a 30-years-later continuation of the universe-spanning saga that (technically) left off back in 1983, with Return of the Jedi. Abrams and co-scripters Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt have delivered a new chapter that simultaneously advances the ongoing narrative, while strongly evoking, echoing and honoring everything that we loved about that wonderful debut, back in 1977.

Abrams sought out the best: Kasdan will be recognized as the writer who worked on both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (not to mention Raiders of the Lost Ark). He lives and breathes this stuff; he also understands the delicate art of imitating Hollywood’s Golden Age serials — with their alternating dollops of melodramatic angst and cliff-hanging action scenes — without crossing the line into overly broad farce.

And, as befits the 30-years-later scenario, we’ve been granted a fresh — and fresh-faced — cast of new characters, possessing varying capabilities, and thrust into ghastly events with either reluctance or grim resolve. At the same time, fans will cheer the return of old friends, whether human, droid or Wookie.

It can’t have been easy to deliver a film that will please both newcomers and longtime fans with light-sabers drawn; Abrams and his crew pulled it off, and then some.