![]() ![]() (His chapter should be studied by Hollywood execs tempted to entrust their billion-dollar properties to the humourless.) ‘The Last Jedi’ scrapes the psychologically dark edge of George Lucas’s original middle chapter, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, but carries that grandeur with ease. Here, he’s been given awesome licence to steer this beloved series into hyperspace. That kid is writer-director Rian Johnson, previously a maker of such mind-colonising indies as ‘Brick’ and ‘Looper’. If JJ Abrams’s franchise-rebooting ‘The Force Awakens’ (2015) was the creation of a boy who lovingly dusted off old toys and put them through their expected poses, its superior sequel is made by a more inventive kid – maybe one with a sideline as his block’s most inspired D&D Dungeon Master –who asks: Why can’t a Rebel fleet be commanded by Laura Dern in a purple wig? Why can’t we have planets of blood-red sand, herds of rampaging alien cattle or adorable puffin-esque porgs invading the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon like wannabe copilots? ![]() Rolling up with the kind of intergalactic swagger that gives us a cosmically infuriating phone prank within the first five minutes, ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ is a work of supreme confidence: witty, wild and free to roam unexplored territory.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |