Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

So I suppose the big question we have all been asking ourselves is: Is Disney interested in making quality films in this saga or are they too preoccupied with selling toilet paper with pictures of C3PO at double the price?

The answer lies somewhere in between. Make no mistake about it: Half this script was made in their marketing department. They sat there with their polls and research and came up with ideas like: "Ooo, ooo. We need a female heroine for the female viewers. She must be very poor and alone, but insanely resilient and crafty. And an african-american. And a white man of course. Everybody likes white men. And to be sure we sell the market to young people we need all actors to be in their thirties and look like they are in their twenties. But wait? What about the old fans? Well, just stick some of the old geezers from the original trilogy in there (almost all in one scene - that doesn't look geriatric at all) and they will all cry with joy. Oh! And remember a cute robot".

So Disney still has no soul. J.J. Abrams though, might just have a little slice. He sets up a frantic pace to waken his audience and it almost gets tedious at first. But he soon finds a good balance and it all settles nicely. OK, so this doesn't have a homage here and there, it has practically stolen 70% of the script from "A New Hope". At times it's so obvious it makes you wonder if they ever hired anyone to do any writing at all.

But where this film is miles better than the pitiful "The Phantom Menace" or the uneven "Attack of the Clones" is dialogue and acting. Daisy Ridley really is brilliant, and Harrison Ford somehow manages to convince us that he actually wanted to do this film. The pair excels, and Ridley even makes Boyega look okay whenever they're on screen together. Boyega has the misfortune of an abject character. A somewhat less irritating version of what Shia Labeouf did in Transformer. A pussy, a whiner and a most unwanted character to give screen-time. In case no one had noticed: The robots are there for comical relief, there is no other need for dorks.

It's always been my opinion that a big movie needs a huge villain. Like Darth Vader, Ian McKellen's excellent Magneto or even the lingering shadow and fire of Sauron. There needs to be an imminent and most serious threat. George Lucas understood this in his second trilogy and found Darth Tyranus (when is ever Christopher Lee wrong for an epic villain?) and the astute Palpatine in Ian McDiarmid's safe hands. The villain here? He's a puppy who has eaten your newspaper. And looks like a guy sulking over not having been invited out to a party with his emo-vampire-friends. Supreme leader Snoke has a bit of potential though, and his scenes have stunningly clever visuals. But they need a new ultimate villain, giving him some scars and harder eyes just won't cut it. First Order also seems like a cartoonish version of the Government from "V for Vendetta".

The red thread in the story is the search for Luke Skywalker, and in this respect Abrams does absolutely everything right. Seriously; all fans of Star Wars want to see Luke found and when the main theme in the story is that unifying, it actually saves quite a bit. When Luke is ultimately found in the last scene it is a fantastic ending to a somewhat mediocre film.

John Williams still has a few good notes in him so the music is, in every respect, great.

This movie is very entertaining and has a nod for both new fans and the generations past. But there are too many big flaws that this was worth the wait. As a setup for a sequel it could just do the trick though. We all want to see more of Luke Skywalker. The original redneck saviour of the Universe.

6/10

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

No lolly-gagging this time as Lucas goes straight to action with many explosions and some nifty piloting. Then it's directly over to some saber-wielding. No time to snooze!

Actually it starts off with 24 minutes of suspense and action. Most likely to distract the viewer from the awfulness of the acting from the two former instalments. Unfortunately, he cuts to Anakin and Padme in one of the worst dialogues of the entire franchise (and perhaps ever in a film not starring Madonna). Including ewoks muttering to each other. Harrison Ford said to George Lucas during the first trilogy that. "George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it". Boy, was he right.

Thankfully, all is not awful in the land of Star Wars-acting. McDiarmid is astonishing and dominates every scene he's in to a most impressive extent. He conveys mischief, manipulation all around and is menacingly evil at just the right times. Naturally, McDiarmid with a lightsaber is not a spectacular action-feast, but he compensates with grimacing, sneering and a wicked grin. Christopher Lee is almost equally brilliant and the film suffers from his (very) early demise. Other than that it's mostly gruesome, both the casting and the acting. I've seen Natalie Portman in many films, and I can't believe how horrible she is in almost every single scene. Whether trying to convey love, fear or strength it's simply not even at an Ed Wood-standard. And she's competing with a Carrie Moss on drugs. Not exactly Ingrid Bergman to set her bar then... McGregor seems bored out of his skull, and particularly the opening scene has him looking like he'd rather pick lint from between his toes. Christensen is still nowhere near believable, though with a hood they make him look somewhat mean. And to top of it most of the side-characters are bad as well. I hope Samuel L. Jackson took his part for his kids.

The story works much better in "Revenge of the Sith" than its two predecessors. Lucas manages a decent build-up until order 66 is invoked, in part thanks to the beautiful transitions of John Williams' score. After this, it's sheer movie-magic. Riveting, suspenseful and devastating. 

The editing of Yoda vs Sidious and Anakin vs Kenobi is utterly enticing and will keep you at the end of your seat from start to finish, which is good considering it goes on for a bit. The ending is all bad, for every single character (except Palpatine - I like that guy). 

And so, finally, things are dark and grim enough to be exciting and credible as the world of Jedis descends into oblivion. And as Vader rises with James Earl-Jones' voice and a final, brilliant, piece of manipulation and deceit from Palpatine, we finally got what we deserved from this trilogy. 

The problem is, it's only half a movie of three (very long) movies. And it's much less compelling than it should have been. Anakin's journey should have been an immense, psychological fall from grace. But firstly, we all stopped caring about Anakin after the first "woohoo" in "The Phantom Menace" as he is such an unendurable twit. Secondly, and more important, Lucas can't write nor direct characters. It just doesn't seem believable that what Anakin goes through (very much including the pivotal scene where he kills Mace Vindu) makes him a slave of Palpatine, willing to kill friends and children alike. 

Like Anakin, this trilogy should have been the chosen one. Instead it brought mostly bitter disappointments. 

7/10

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

After the atrocious acting of Jake Lloyd in "The Phantom Menace", George Lucas must have been relieved that enough time had passed in the saga that he could recast. And surely, he couldn't fail as badly twice. Hayden Christensen uses only a single scene to prove what a dire miscast he is. And hence must of the premise is destroyed already. This trilogy was supposed to be the epic evolving from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader, and a simple casting-problem leads to the destruction of the entire character's believability. Devastating.

So, a bit of a spoiler early on there. Thankfully, Lucas seems to have understood that most fans loathed Jar-Jar, and has taken him more or less out of the picture (though he does manage to be pivotal to the rise of Palpatine). This move single-handedly makes all actions and drama better, as he is no longer in them with his idiotic antics and squeals. The action-sequences are actually better all around. Particularly Obi-Wan vs Django Fett is a thrill to watch with a brilliant scenery in the background. Oh, and seismic charges in asteroid fields are wicked cool!

Furthermore there are less Looney Tunes here than in the first instalment and that can only be good. Dex is much more likeable than all the twits from the predecessor.

As would be expected from my intro, Christensen has no screen-chemistry with Portman, and is only marginally better with McGregor. Either no screen-testing was done or no one had the courage to tell George Lucas that "These guys are the worst screen-couple since Chris Tucker and whoever stupid enough to star in a film with him": This hurts the flow of the film badly, and makes Lucas' tepid dialogue seem even worse. The romantic scenes are hopelessly lost and makes you cringe every time. Portman seems like an adult adoring a little child and Christensen... well, who knows what he is trying to portray.

Honorable mentions though, to the utterly brilliant Christopher Lee wielding his lightsaber against our little green friend (another great scene). Lee and Ian McDiarmid are the only actors on show that are able to create sparks of tension without CGI and massive amounts of "pew-pew".

The suspense and action seems much more adult this time, and since there's more of it this increases the value of the film quite a lot. The arena-scene is another example. Dozens of Jedi fighting side by side was definitely worth the wait.

So naturally, "Attack of the Clones" is a rather big improvement on "The Phantom Menace". But the fact that they managed to improve a few awful things, doesn't really make it good. That this film is miles better than "The Phantom Menace" is not really a comfort. It is still nowhere near what he had hoped, hell demanded, it would be.

As expected with the second instalment of a trilogy, it ends a rather dark note. Except for a nonsensical wedding of course.

It seems Lucas believed that mostly kids would watch and that they would get to watch the characters grow between the films, like the Harry Potter-series managed so effortlessly and brilliant. There are two flaws in that plan. Firstly, there are hardly 10 directors in the world that are worse at developing characters than George Lucas. Secondly, most people who had been waiting anxiously for these films for 30 years were, shockingly, not 8 years old.

5/10

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Never has a film been as anticipated as this. Googly-eyed nerds were waiting for this for decades. And when it was released, it killed the hopes and dreams of all aforementioned nerds. But had they simply collected too high expectations for too long a time, or is it really the stinker they all thought it to be?

Unfortunately, it's the latter. And whereas there were many mistakes made here, none where bigger than the cast and characters. The least first: Even a lot of the extras here are horrible. Actors with 1-2 lines. I can't really remember the last film where that was a problem? George Lucas even manages to make battle droids, whose single purpose is to be an army, annoying and idiotic. Perhaps his many limitations in writing were too big to make the main characters smart, and instead he chose to dumb the rest down.
And speaking of dumb: The idea of Jar-Jar Binks must be the single worst idea since the invention of the motion pictures. Imagine someone having the idea to replace Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. With Rosanna Barr. Now imagine it being transformed into porn. Still starring Jason Alexander as the customer. That's how bad he is. It would be bad enough if he just showed up from time to time as comical relief to piss me off. The problem here is that he is ever-present. If there's a battle scene, he's there to make a mockery of it. If there's a sad funeral, his infernal antics will screw up that mood as well. If there's suspense or action, well you get the picture. I hate him so very, very much.

Another unfathomable mistake Lucas makes is the casting of Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker. OK, so it's not good sportsmanship to thrash a little kid. But he's an adult now. Besides, he sucks and will suck it up. It's very easy to come up with many examples of directors who managed to find brilliant children for their parts. Actually, more usual than the opposite. Lloyd hardly gets a scene or emotion right. It's all Ed Wood-style from the first to the last "Yuppie". This kid couldn't even act dead. Or roll around for that matter.

But as McGregor is hugely uneven and the usually rock-solid Portman absolutely terrible here, there is little else to do than blame the director. When two-thirds of the cast are plain awful, the direction (and cutting) simply isn't good enough. Extra kudos to Liam Neeson then, for somehow managing to give a good performance despite being dragged down by some pretty stupid lines. He sets a fatherly tone towards both Anakin and Obi-Wan and seems stoic and confident throughout. Other than that McDiarmid is brilliant as Palpatine, but that's 3-4 scenes. In third place is the stuntman playing Darth Maul. Thankfully we are at least treated to a whole new generation of lightsaber-wielders.

And why would a man that is unable to script a decent dialogue use half an hour of his film on politics? I understand that this is imperative for Palpatine's rise to power, but in this franchise it seems utterly misplaced and without any tension. Probably a bit because it is also done very poorly.

So, is there nothing to redeem this horrid use of computer storage space? The pod-race is kind of cool, but 100% predictable in every aspect and it would appear as if George Lucas just switched the engines from whoever "Herbie" raced and went along with it.
The scenery is of course stunning, and visually it appears Lucas is finally in the time he deserves. John Williams is still composing kick-ass scores to this franchise (except for the final march, a fitting tune to the inept and stupid (God, I hate him!) Jar-Jar) and there are cute robots.

Unfortunately, this film is every bit as bad as the infuriated fans felt. It's not the worst ever made, but considering the anticipation and the pathos of its predecessors, it hardly could have been worse.

2/10

Predator (1987)

Was there ever anything more manly than this flick? Within two minutes Arnie simply must arm-wrestle an old army-buddy, hence a close-up of his bulging biceps. Tone set!

Back to the testosterone. A bunch of really big guys (whose only jokes are about vaginas) in the jungle battling a really big beast. All lines are of course written and delivered without a single drop of oestrogen. Where else could you get away with this dialogue:

Poncho: You're bleeding man. You're hit!
Blain: I ain't got time to bleed.

Perhaps the finest macho-retort in film-history. So audaciously and hilariously ridiculous, yet so fitting the mood, that it simply works wonders. With a cast named Dutch (very close to Butch), Blain, Poncho, Mac, Billy and Dillon there really is no room for silly-boys (nor girls for that matter). There are no martial arts, no spinning kicks, just savage brutality and strength with some rudimentary military engineering (also very macho) to boot.

The acting is, naturally, bloody awful, and made worse by the fact that they seem to want Arnie to be the best actor on show. Most of the men have so few lines that it doesn't really matter, but Bill Duke is unfortunate enough to be the one to demonstrate the fear and panic being hunted by an unknown beast in the jungle can lead to. Thus he has to act every once in a while. To devastating effect.

The reason "Predator" was a success was not primarily because of it's record-shattering levels of testosterone but mainly because it had a good concept and lots of suspense and action. Predator as a creature is a great idea, and his introduction not at all shoddy, as they gradually introduce first his presence, then his intent and later his form. His gadgets are cool, as is his appearance and he is a very big hunter, perfectly fitted against our big men. The heat-camera is also a very clever idea to give an insight as well as add some extra tension.

If you can get a girl to watch this with you for a different reason than drooling at big men, it is true love. But you'll always have mates to watch it with. Or dump if they can't snicker at what is probably the most macho film ever made

7/10

Enemy of the State (1998)

There's one thing you can be sure of: If a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer raises an issue, it will do so without an ounce of subtlety and intelligence. The point will be so obvious and one-sided it begs belief. If George Orwell saw "Enemy of the State" he would probably give up and demand all copies of his books be burned.

But, message is hardly the main thing when Bruckheim makes a movie, money is. So let's see if we can't find another reason to see this flick.

It's rather obvious: Tony Scott knows how to direct a thriller. He makes sure there is enough going on to keep you from getting bored, cross-cuts nicely for flow and makes decent chase-scenes and action-pieces so you'll be entertained. 139 minutes does stretch Scott's talent, but most of the time he makes the best of it. Furthermore he has (at least for the second half) Gene Hackman in very nice form adding some much needed gruff and comical relief.

But wait, Will Smith stars here! Surely, there is no need for comical relief? Well, we're back to money. Smith is a dire miscast in this film, not able to make himself believable as neither a lawyer, a paranoid nut or a husband (he's OK with the kids). He seems like he does his "Fresh Prince - 15 years later routine", and as that show ran for 6 season, we've all had more than enough of it.

The casting really reeks of the single motivation of dollars here. Apart from Jason Robards, the casting is so unimaginative, the programmers from Windows 98 could have done it. Jon Voight as a shrewd and evil government man? He could play that in his sleep (and does so here), Seth Green and Jack Black as nerdy tech-guys with questionable personal hygiene, Tom Sizemore as a mobster, Barry Pepper as a hard-boiled, no-nonsense agent, and Jason Lee as an environmental hippie. Really? Again? Even Caan is so exceptionally type-cast it makes you wonder if anyone were allowed an independent thought during casting. Lisa Bonet is just utterly misused in a part that leaves no clue as to why anyone would be interested in her (apart from looks of course), whereas Jason Robards is more memorable (though dead in 14 minutes or so). So yes; Hackman is very much needed.

Scott has a very nice end-game that adds much-needed smartness, but a daft closing line once again overstating the message in the film still leaves me with a sour taste.

In conclusion, it's the best we have come to expect from the production of Jerry Bruckheimer; it's stupid but at most times entertaining.

5/10

Magnolia (1999)

A strange and unusual start for a drama where director Anderson sets an early bar for sex and violence, is followed by introducing the entire cast in the first minutes as a montage. Thankfully for Anderson, few films have a better cast than "Magnolia".

There really is nowhere more natural to start than the cast. Fantastic characters with an absolutely stunning piece of casting means this 3-hour ride would have been good even without a decent script. As it is, it's absolutely delectable.

I'm not a big fan of Tom Cruise but his Oscar-winning turn as Frank T.J. Mackey is undoubtedly his best performance to date. He seems to have the time of his life, prancing around in his briefs, flexing and flirting, and at the flick of a coin displaying nothing but astute disdain when he is cornered. The brilliant line "I'm quietly judging you", stated with absolute callousness serves to nail his best scene.

Perhaps even better is John C. Reilly, an Anderson-favourite. He is perfectly directed in a role where most others would have you cringing in embarrassment and pity over his fumbling and stupid mistakes. He brings a warmth to his part that is rare on the big screen and it makes all the difference.

Jason Robards entire job is to die, lying on a bed being fed morphine. He was too exquisite an actor to leave it at that. Moving between anger at the world and himself, bitterness, sorrow and the urge to give fatherly advice to his male nurse, there is never a dull scene around his bed. Extra kudos to Robards for being able to display all these emotions under what is a character clearly dulled by strong drugs and excruciating pain.

Another favourite of Anderson, the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman, plays the nurse. A perfect blend of professionalism, empathy and curiosity as his long watch and ordeals along the way slowly tires him. I miss Hoffman. No one could quite make me feel the emotions in a scene the way he could, and he was never better at that than in Magnolia

Philip Baker Hall is the last to get an (extra) honorable mention. Obviously haunted by the life he's lead and the fact that he has no time left to right his wrongs, Hall portrays him with grave seriousness and a low-pitched, drained voice to add to his indifferent appearance. His final demise as a man is a heart-breaking scene, beautifully directed with a tormented performance, simply by repeating the three same words over and over.

Anderson gives the alert viewer small drops and catchphrases to tie the story and the characters and the story even tighter together. I love every one of them (provided I've been able to spot all). They are necessary though as there are so many "main" characters and so much going on over such a long time. It's perfectly done, though, as the film effortlessly leaps, swings and sneaks between them all. There is a purpose to all the stories and characters and it shows stronger and stronger throughout. This has to be the only 3-hour movie made where it not once feels too long.

And as the weather worsens, so do the fates of our anti-heroes. Right up to the crescendo (starting with a drop of morphine on a dying man's tongue) that includes raining frogs thwarting a suicide-attempt ends, most ironically with a sing-along from the entire main cast of Aimee Mann's "Wise up". The only sing-along you'll ever need to see in the movies. Then the sky clears.

If I am to be a critical bastard, I would say that Anderson lays on it a bit heavy in the "hysterical female"-department (the only one besides Julianna Moore that could do her part would be Annette Bening) as the contrasts to the male cast (apart from Cruise) gets too heavy at times.

Other than that, it's one of the finer films of its decade and surely something Robert Altman would always wish he had made.

9/10