Review: Star Wars - The Rise Of Skywalker (tenth-pass)

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
(tenth-pass)
Cert: 12A / 142 mins / Dir. J.J. Abrams / Trailer

Previous reviews: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

So Finn is a Jedi, now. Okay that's not strictly true, Finn is Force-sensitive, now. Or rather he always was, a bit. It's the thing he was trying to tell Rey for the whole of The Rise Of Skywalker. And that's fine. It's great, even. We've known since 1977 that this mysterious essence exists in all living things, indeed it's created by them. And Finn is a living thing. We just know that some beings are more adept at tuning into it. And those beings are typically Jedi, whereas Finn was a conscripted Stormtrooper.

But there's nothing precluding him from having a high midichlorian-count, of course*¹. With the best will in the world, Palpatine and Vader wiping out the Jedi over fifty years earlier was never going to prevent new ones from being born. Force powers are inheritable, but mini-Jedi are born to non-Force-sensitive parents all the time. It's why the Jedi Order had a reputation for being child-snatchers, that wouldn't have spread if the only new Jedi were born in the temple, somehow to a largely celibate order.

FLAG

But speaking of abduction, why didn't the First Order flag Finn as one to watch? You'd expect them to have some screening equipment in place for the kids they recruit, at least. Based on the Empire-model, the organisation would either quietly dispose of potential Force-wielders or move them across to the Inquisitor-corps and make use of the bonus abilities. Who needs a bunch of fire-starting five yr-olds running around the place?

Let's not forget that Finn wielded a lightsaber on his character-poster for The Force Awakens, something we assumed at the time was related to him holding his own against Kylo Ren on Ilum (well, for longer than most would be expected to anyway). But Finn's power is demonstrably much lower on the scale than Rey's, and without any formal training. TRoS is the movie, after all, where he sees his friend using the Force for healing and suggestion, not just combat and telekinesis. While he's in awe of Rey's abilities, it's more a quiet reverence and a niggle of familiarity. Now that Finn's aware of the Force tingling within himself, it's growing every day.

BETTY

So it's not beyond the realms of plausibility for one of the Sequel Trilogy's new heroes to find himself coming to the Jedi party a little later. But then, the film seems to suggest that newcomer Janna might be Force-sensitive, too. And the entire squadron she deserted with on Kef Bir. Although in my own personal head-canon, I think that where Finn describes the Force to her as "a feeling", Janna's agreement may be closer to "a conscience". Because unless they were a special project put together by the First Order and hadn't begun their Sith-intern training, the implication there is that anyone can be a Jedi.

And while that's charming in the same way as everyone running a race getting their own medal, the knock-on effect of that optimism is that Anakin, Luke and Rey Skywalker aren't particularly special by virtue of their bloodlines or abilities, only their choices (there is a separate post to be written about the importance of choice, though). The whole narrative of The Chosen One is pretty much diluted when anyone could have trained and become powerful enough to take down Vader and the Emperor, they just didn't, or didn't want to.

We can all be heroes without the Force, that's what Han Solo is there to show.

But I'm very cool with Finn being a Jedi-in-training. Much like Rey building her own orange-bladed lightsaber, it's another foundation laid for future adventures, be they on the screen or the page.

And apart from anything else, Broom Boy is going to need a sparring-partner...

The Star Wars.



Obvs.



Obvs.



That one's up for debate, but probably not.



Try me.



Not that I can tell.



Level 0: It is Star Wars.

...but if you wanted to go around the houses with it, The Rise Of Skywalker features Lupita Nyong'o, who starred in Black Panther alongside Forest Whitaker from Taken 3 which had Liam Neeson in it. Neeson was also in The Commuter with Andy Nyman, who starred in 2000's Dead Babies next to Paul Bettany, who was of course in Wimbledon with Jon Favreau, the director and voice-artist behind 2016's The Jungle Book which starred... Lupita Nyong'o.





*¹ Hahahaah, oh yes I went there. FIGHT ME. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Greed

Greed
Cert: 15 / 104 mins / Dir. Michael Winterbottom / Trailer

Five days before his 60th birthday, boorish retail magnate Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan) is overseeing preparations for a lavish party on Mykonos. A coterie of minions and hangers-on surrounds him including his mother (Shirley Henderson*¹), current partner (Shanina Shaik), ex-wife Samantha (Isla Fisher), son Finn (Asa Butterfield), PR Manager*² (Sarah Solemani) and personal assistant Amanda (Dinita Gohil).

Also lurking in the background is Richard's hired biographer Nick (David Mitchell), tasked with chronicling the great man's success story. The problem is that the more people Nick meets, the harder it becomes to write anything nice about his subject...

MISH

And what an almighty mess this film is. No, seriously. Greed should, by all accounts, be a story uncovered for the audience by the on-screen author. Instead we just get a mish-mash of everything. He's a writer, so somehow we get talking-head cutaways from a completed mocumentary as well as his own amateurish cam-footage. The film opens on the day of the party before flashing back to five days earlier, then we get more flashbacks and flashbacks-within-flashbacks until it becomes unclear who's telling each segment and what the point of it is. The fast cuts are migraine-inducing, even outside of the stylised montage sequences.

As well as the incoherent editing, we get a number of sketched-in subplots. An Oedipus thread with Finn and the building of a plywood amphitheatre are at least fitting for the storyline, as are the Syrian refugees living on the beach next to Richard's party venue. But the constructed-reality show being filmed on the island featuring McCreadie's daughter Lily (Sophie Cookson), other than bumping into the refugee story, feels like it's been dropped in from another movie. When there's A Message to convey, Greed is very on the nose. It also keeps forgetting there's a message.

The film either employs improvised dialogue shot on a first take to increase spontaneity, or Michael Winterbottom is actively directing his cast to talk over each other with no natural end-point to each scene. It is intolerable that this left the editing room.

MONSTER

The real shame is that there's a fantastic cast here, all of whom have been much better elsewhere. Even Coogan struggles in a role which feels like it was written for Sacha Baron Cohen. His central figure should be an absolute monster of a man. Clearly - CLEARLY - a composite of around 15% Alan Sugar, 85% Philip Green, McCreadie is a character we already know on an instinctive level before the opening titles have even finished. But for all the bull-headed excess and yelling at subordinates, Coogan plays him pretty much as his own Gareth Cheeseman character from the mid-90s, with a little bit of Del Boy swagger and a few cracks of awkwardness mined from Alan Partridge. IE three comedy characters. Two of whom are his own. No drama.

Coogan forgets to be unlikeable or Winterbottom forgets to direct him as such. Quite possibly both. So when the film's climax comes lumbering into view, what should be a shocking, even sobering, moment instead means... *checks notes* NOTHING. I spent more time wondering where they found the CGI budget than I did empathising with Amanda*³.

PIEAND

Because in its final moments, the film suddenly grows a conscience, lecturing its audience with captioned statistics on global inequality and the fashion industry, as if it's taken anything else seriously in the preceding 100 minutes. While there is certainly a point (indeed A Better Film) to be made, this is cack-handed frowning like that time Russell Brand pretended to be outraged that a cleaner doesn't earn the same money as a CEO, despite the two having completely different jobs and responsibilities*⁴. The whole thing is painfully wearing.

Is Greed a raucously sharp comedy? Is it a thought-provoking satire? Or is is it just an ADHD mood-board, a prolonged elevator pitch thrown together by a sleep-deprived first year film student, the cinematic equivalent of being yelled at for 100 minutes?

Michael Winterbottom doesn't know, so why the hell should we?

Nothing good.



Nope.



Nope.



Absolutely not.



Yep.



There isn't.



Level 1: Babu Frik is in this and so is Sabé.



I was going to throw on an extra point for the bit with James Blunt because that was good, and then I decided not to because the rest of the movie isn't good enough to have earned that one, brief high-point.


*¹ What the fuck accent is Shirley Henderson meant to be doing in this film, though? Anyone? She's normally great. The characters here say she's Irish, but it sounds like the Belfast suburb of Cardiff. Much like Jude Law's verbal wrangling in that submarine movie, I suspect the accent is either a very specific regional twang that she knows intimately from relatives across the water, or she can't do it at all and has opted for Shop Demonstration Mode. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² This isn't me being rude by the way, if I haven't named a character above it's because those aren't recorded on the film's IMDB or Wiki pages. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Because with the best will in the world, it's not McCreadie's fault that Amanda's aunt died in a fire at another factory because she was sacked from McCreadie's supplier weeks earlier. A fire in the original factory, if they'd had to cut safety measures because McCreadie was driving down costs elsewhere? McCreadie's fault. Malnutrition or illness from working long underpaid hours at the original factory? McCreadie's fault. The original factory being struck by a meteorite while her aunt was working a shift? Not McCreadie's fault, mate. The fire could have happened anywhere. Remember this is fiction, Winterborrom. You have the absolute power to make these things link up into a coherent narrative. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Y'know, as if when Russell did his Arthur remake, he got the same salary as a 17yr old who spends the day bringing everyone coffee on-set. ^{[ BACK ]}



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Star Wars - The Rise Of Skywalker (third-pass)

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (third-pass / PLOT SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 142 mins / Dir. J.J. Abrams / Trailer


Previous reviews: 1 | 2

Okay you know the drill, this post is less a cumulative appraisal and more a list of 'notes as we go' through The Rise of Skywalker. Because of this, it features spoilers. Great, whacking, Star Destroyer-sized spoilers. So if you haven't seen the film yet, stop reading now. Apart from anything else, there's no real context for most of them as I assume you've seen the movie, so they won't make sense to you coming to this review blind. But because I'm nice like that, the spoilers don't start until after this bump.

It's also worth pointing out that as sarcastic as I'm about to be, I do love The Rise Of Skywalker and I'm feeling more 'at home' with it on each subsequent viewing. This is playful joshing.

And this is your last chance to turn back...



The Bad Guys

• Right, this galaxy-wide broadcast from the Emperor who's been thought dead for the last 35+ years is quite an important thing, right? Am I meant to have read the lead-in novel to get this? Will we get to hear the broadcast? Surely we would if it's important enough to be the first thing the crawl mentions, right?

• Is this the longest gap between the start of a Star Wars movie and the first line of dialogue? That's quite a bold move.

• Wow, the Knights Of Ren really are the briefest window-dressing in this movie, aren't they? Almost as much as those red-armoured Sith Troopers.

Vader: "So there are only two of the Wayfinders, is that right?"
Emperor: "Yes, and they're totally safe. Don't worry, I'm on it."
Vader: "And can I ask where you keep them?
Emperor: "Well one of them is in a vault behind that door ten feet away from you. I mean it's not out on display but always close at hand so I can grab it if I have to leave here in a hurry for any reason."
Vader: "Ooh, nice touch. And what about the other one?"
Emperor: "I've left it upside down under a garden ornament just out in the open on some planet you've never heard of. Got a couple of lads watching it though so it'll be safe as houses."
Vader: "..."

• Y'know what? If Rian Johnson had brought The Emperor out of absolutely nowhere at the beginning of his movie and had him say "I have been every voice you have ever heard inside your head", toxic-fandom would have been calling him every EXPLETIVE under the sun for it.

The Good Guys

• Wait, the rebels have to fly all the way to a hidden base to transfer a message through a cable? Is the e-mail down? Get onto IT about that, lads.

• In the lightspeed-skipping sequence, are those pipe/towers at Bespin?

• I'm very much enjoying grumpy, sarcastic Poe Dameron in this. Ironically, he's far more likeable than his gee-whiz pirate-lite from the previous two movies.

• Oh, Rey is trying to summon the spirits of deceased Jedi. I wonder if this will come up again later in the film?

Poe: "Somehow, Palpatine survived"
Rose: "...do we believe this?"
Poe: "I hope so mate, there'll be no further explanation of how, so just take it as read, yeah?"

• So the secret Sith world is Exegol? Not like, say, Moraband or something? Okay, that's fine.

Finn: "Rose, last chance?"
Rose: "The general asked me to stay here and literally study schematics of old ships rather than go on an adventure to save the Rebellion like I did earlier. It's almost as if my screen-time has been cut for some reason while retaining my contractually stipulated appearance in the movie."
Finn: "Okay, somebody's touchy."
Rose: *looks over spectacles*

• Evil space-chimp is running Sith hat repair-shop now. Okay, that's fine.

Pasana

• Guys, stop making desert locales which aren't Tatooine. Or like return to Jedha instead. Please.

• I am loving C-3PO's humour in this movie, he is fantastic.

• Oh, Rey has been asked her surname and she's stuck for an answer. I wonder if this will come up again later in the film?

• Oh, a physical object has been teleported using the Force between Rey and Kylo Ren. I wonder if this will come up again later in the film?

• So wait, Ochi's ship is just "there", parked on a rock? You can just leave stuff out on Pasana and it doesn't get stolen, ransacked or vandalised? You'll be telling me next the ship is working and ready to go.

• Bonus points for six-legged elephant droid in the desert, serving precisely no practical purpose. Lovely stuff.

• The speeder-bikes with massive wheels seemed cumbersome and impractical in the trailer, and here they're shown to be cumbersome and impractical. Fair play.

• Oh, Rey has healed another living creature by transferring life-energy using the Force. I wonder if this will come up again later in the film?

Poe: "Okay, we've only got eight hours left!"
Finn: "Are we doing this literal countdown-thing again? Like last time, in the film that everyone complained about?
Poe: "Shut up, Derek."

• Okay, I love Joonas Suotamo but why does Chewie look like a guy in a suit for this film? I know Joonas is around the same height as Peter Mayhew, but they're built differently (Joonas is a basketball player, Peter was a hospital porter with bad posture) and they move differently. Peter coached him for TFA and that seems to have been forgotten. It totally looks like there's padding around his middle under the yak-hair. It's very much a guy in a suit. Less of this, please, bit of respect.

• OMG! Chewbacca's dead!! Haha, not really.

Kijimi

• Okay, where is my 3¾" figure of C-3PO wearing a coat, please?

• OMG! C-3PO's going to be lobotomised!! Haha, not really.

• When they're all like 'mate, doesn't R2-D2 back up your memory?', why doesn't Babu Frik just make a backup before he performs the procedure? He's such an expert slicer he's forgotten that making backups is the cornerstone of IT?

• Zori Bliss is great. Which comes as something of a pleasant surprise because I've only ever seen Kerri Russell being absolutely dreadful in stuff before.

• Why is D-O here, though? I get that there's toy-potential, but he doesn't really do a lot, does he? As soon as he starts giving the Rebels information about Exegol, Rey just transmits markers from her X-Wing anyway.

• C-3PO: "Oh, my first laser-battle!". A smashing callback to Attack Of The Clones there, and illustrating the full factory-settings extent of his wipe.

• Speaking of which, the change in mannerisms between the C-3PO who sat down in Babu Frik's chair and the one who got out of it is remarkable. They're both definitely Threepio, but it shows how much Daniels has evolved the characterisation over four decades.

• The split-screen of Rey and Kylo's conversation here is lovely, especially the way the locations intersect and overlap.

• Oh, thank you for the reminder of the teleporting objects through the Force with Vader's helmet. I wonder if this will come up again later in the film?

• Actually, why didn't Kylo just give Vader's helmet to the space-chimp to repair as well?

First real point of order though, when Kylo admits to Rey "I didn't lie, your parents were nobody, they chose to be", that's not Abrams trampling all over Johnson's writing from The Last Jedi. When Kylo made that assertion in the previous film, he was doing so based on information planted by Snoke (indeed Palpatine, as we now know) specifically to disrupt the protagonists' faith. Pretty much every line spoken by Kylo Ren can be attributed to lies, arrogance or being flat-out wrong about the subject at hand. And while I'm happy to put my hands up and say I was incorrect about claiming Rey would turn out to be Han and Leia's daughter (ie Ben's brother), I'll reiterate that I never believed for a second that the 'nobody' hypothesis would turn out to be literally true. Short version of all this: it's not a retcon lads, it's the reveal to the existing buildup*¹.

Kylo: "My mother was the daughter of Darth Vader, your father was the son of Palpatine-"
Rey: "Yeah I'll be honest, it sort of feels like everybody's turned over two pages at once, there. I'm meant to just accept this with no context, yeah? Who is Palpatine other than some dead guy that everyone frowns about?"

Endor

• Horses on Endor. Okay, they've got tusks, but it's still a fantastic callback to the Battle For Endor movie.

• Love that the Sith-dagger has that Jonesian Staff Of Ra feel, not least since it seems the blade was forged as part of a prophecy of the second Death Star being destroyed. Although much like the staff, it really seems like you have to be in the exact elevation, distance and angle for it to work. Fair play.

• Okay, Chewie said that the Falcon's landing gear was out of action, but why does that mean they have to come to a skidding stop churning up half a field in the process? Couldn't he, like, slow to a stop and then just drop the ship down?

• I know LFL are making the absolute best of the footage they've got with Carrie Fisher, but her exit in this movie makes absolutely no sense. Although given Padmé apparently died of a broken heart...

• OMG! Ben Solo's dead!! Haha, not really.

• So Han is-- ...y'know what? Okay, I'll give you that one. Although as they both admit he's figment of Ben's imagination, obviously this means we're going to see actual Force-spirits of actual former-Jedi later in the film, right?

Ajan Kloss

• That transmission that Finn, Poe, Rose and Beaumont hear, the one Beaumont translates. Is that the transmission mentioned in the crawl? Because they're acting like they're only hearing it for the first time, but they're really not surprised about it. This strand of the plot really needs more time allocated to it.

• Alright Billy Dee, I know you're pleased to be back but you don't have to grin your way through every scene like you're Gina Carano in The Mandalorian.

Ahch-To

• And the second point of order is Luke, here. Let me assure you that when he walks on-screen, makes a wry quip about 'respecting' the weapon of a Jedi and admitting he was wrong about staying on Ahch-To, that's not Abrams reversing Rian Johnson's script, it's him underlining the point. It was clear in The Last Jedi that Luke was wrong. That was the point; he's fallible. The Last Jedi is a film about failure. Although obviously (and I know this is not the place to get into this) a lot of people seem to believe that their childhood hero should have precisely the same personality and outlook he did 35 years earlier, as if they themselves have been completely unaffected by what life has thrown at them over three and a half decades. Luke was wrong, and there's no redemption for a fallen hero without sacrifice. Or weren't you paying attention to Return Of The Jedi?

• I notice Luke's spirit is translucent, not solid like Yoda's was. Okay, that's fine.

• Please for the love of God stop CGI'ing young Leia. It looked terrifying in Rogue One and that hasn't changed.

• And that X-Wing is just going to work out of the water like that, yeah? With or without a navigator droid? I mean was the cockpit watertight? Because the padding of the seat and helmet-interior is going to have perished years ago, otherwise. Okay, that's fine.

Ajan Kloss

• C-3PO: "You want to put what in my head? Under no circum-" is the greatest joke in this film. Bravo.

Exegol

• When I first heard that Richard E. Grant was in the new Star Wars film I figured he'd have a couple of lines as an officer in the background, but he's really bloody in this isn't he?

• Two best snatches of dialogue in this movie:
"Jam their speeders."
"...I can't sir"
"Why not?"
"they're not using speeders..."
and
"It's not a navy sir, it's just... people"
Both showing that the Final Order is every bit as blinkered as the old Empire. Beautiful writing.

Palps: "Kill me and my spirit will pass into you, as all the Sith live in me..."
Rey: "Right, wait, is this something that's always happened, or have you just invented this? Explain pls."

• Ben Solo just rocking up in a black sweater to take care of business. Where did he get the working TIE fighter? Can't have been on Endor. Did he call through for it pretending to be still-bad? Never mind, add it to the list of questions.

• Oh look, Rey's force-teleported a weapon to Ben. Well isn't that a thing?

• Although Ben's John Wickian shrug when he gets the lightsaber is the second-greatest joke in this film. Bravo again.

• Hahaha, hi Wedge. I see they brought you back for literally three words. Oh mate.

• Oh look, Rey has managed to communicate with the spirits of deceased Jedi. Well isn't that a thing?

• Although you do realise cinema is a visual medium, right? Just running a load of voices - many of which sound quite similar by the way - maybe not the best way to communicate this breakthrough?

• OMG! Palpatine's dead!! Yeah, really. Apparently. But seriously tell me why he won't just rock up in another movie in ten years' time? He even said himself that he's died before, and I see nothing of permanence here any more than being dropped screaming into an exploding Death Star.

• When Ben is crawling his way across the floor to Rey, is anyone else's brain playing Superheroes from the end of Rocky Horror?

• Oh look, Ben has transferred life-energy to Rey using the Force. Well isn't that a thing?

• So #ReyLo is a thing. Okay, that's fine.

• Right, there are a lot of people dying on Exegol, there. It's not just stormtroopers and officers, there's the maintenance and support crews, the cleaners, the caterers, the plumbers - this is like the red jumpsuits and the scissors in Us, where did all this stuff come from? How is this a secret base when hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared here to populate it? I mean they've got to have been brought here because if they've been born and raised on Exegol then where are the schools, the hopspitals, the pubs and the shops? The First Order massed in the Unknown Regions, and now Palpatine's Final Order are massing in a different part of the Unknown Regions. I know they're big but is no one noticing all the shit going missing? Anyway, here they are all dying. That's a bit harsh, mate. Mind you, with two Death Stars and Starkiller Base under their belts, I suppose genocide is pretty much in the Rebellion's HR manual by now.

• And the not-inconsiderable remnants of The First Order are still around in the 'regular' galaxy, right? All that was destroyed here was Palpatine's secret-navy and the officers who'd flown in to command. Back in The Last Jedi, The First Order dudes had pretty much taken over the galaxy, so there were definitely more of them about than the destroyers chasing the Resistance fleet. I mean yeah, any First Order presence is now rudderless, but as it's an organisation seemingly made up of utter sociopaths, it's not going to take too long for some a-hole to rise and fill the vacuum. More fodder for the novels and comics, and that's all good.

Ajan Kloss

• Okay, I am totally here for that kiss between Commander D'Acy and Rebel Pilot Tyce, because a) representation is important especially in smaller, throwaway moments, and b) I know it will infuriate the movie-gammons and I feed on their high blood-pressure like a facetious vampire. Bring that shit on.

• Why do we get that shot of Bespin? Endor and Jakku I understand, but we haven't been to Bespin for years. Unless that was Bespin in the lightspeed skipping earlier?

Maz: "Chewie, this is for you"
Chewie: "Oh, while everybody's busy hugging and having their own reunion parties. Getcha. No award-ceremonies is enough for me, thank you."

Tatooine

• So wait, the Lars Homestead is still just "there" on Tatooine and no one else has moved in? No new tenants for an operational moisture farm, or just squatters or anything? The place doesn't get ransacked or vandalised? Okay, that's fine.

• As I mentioned before, this film is great at wrapping up the Sequel Trilogy, but not the OT and certainly not the prequels. Anyone telling you otherwise is doing marketing. This is the close of a trilogy, not the nine-part saga.

• And apart from anything else, Rey burying those sabers like that is a clear sign that we will be back, even if it's with the stable-boy from The Last Jedi. This shit is not over.

• And where does that black-handled saber with the orange blade come from? She just rocks up at the homestead with it clipped to her belt. How much time has lapsed between Exegol and Tatooine?

• Oh look, someone has been asked her surname again. Well isn't that a thing?

Woman: "There's been no one here for so long. Who are you?"
Rey: "I'm Rey".
Woman: "Rey, who?"
Chippy Imperial recruitment officer pops into frame: "Well you're on your own, so... Solo it is! There, I've written it down, it's legal now and that's that."

Rey looks at camera.
Iris-out. Credits.

The Star Wars.



Obvs.



Obvs.



Adam Driver spends the entire third-act without a single line of dialogue; that is magnificent.



Already have once this week...



Okay, I think there's a Wilhelm buried low in the mix coming from Ben when Palpatine blasts him into that pit. But the acoustics weren't great in the auditorium today so it was less clear than my second-pass.



Level 0: It is Star Wars.

...but if you wanted to go around the houses with it, The Rise Of Skywalker stars Naomi Ackie, who was in The End Of The F**king World with Geoff Bell from that RocknRolla, a movie which also featured Thandie Newton who was in 2018's Gringo with David Oyelowo, who had a role in 2009's Small Island alongside Hugh Quarshie, a regular on Holby City at the time in 2011 when Silas Carson was in a bunch of episodes, an actor who appears in 2019's The Corrupted with Naomi Ackie...





*¹ Although I would be genuinely amazed if Rian Johnson had "she's Palpatine's granddaughter" scribbled in the margins of his Last Jedi pad. One of my few bugbears about this trilogy is the way the newly-organised Lucasfilm have been winging-it and just hoping everything will turn out for the best, and writing the Saga-films on the hoof is by far the worst offender here. More on that another time... ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: T2 Trainspotting (second-pass)

T2 Trainspotting (second-pass)
Cert: 18 / 117 mins / Dir. Danny Boyle / Trailer

"The world changes, eh? Even if we don't…"
~ Francis Begbie, T2.

It's always good when you can get a new experience from re-watching a film, and T2 Trainspotting is a fine example. After not knowing what to expect the first time round and being bombarded with the twenty years of catching up that Boyle, Hodge and Welsh throw at the audience, my second-pass was a quieter, even more isolating watch. Not more poignant exactly, but knowing the destination means you can enjoy the journey more and take in the scenery*¹.

Away from the attention-grabbing, gurning bromance between Ewan McGregor and Johnny Lee Miller, this is really Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner's film. Begbie and Spud are the half of the original gang who actually manage to achieve some level of advancement from everything that occurs. And while I'd initially thought the movie was beating nostalgia with a harsh stick (being a large part of the reason that Renton and Sickboy find themselves caught in the same failing behavioural loops), it became clear that a more focused, objective nostalgia is the very thing which allows Spud to move forward with his life. And while Begbie still has some way to go by the closing credits, his character develops more in those two hours than it has in his previous fifteen years.

Although on the subject of the former two, that the scene in the King William Arms where Renton and Sick Boy improvise a sectarian musical number in the process of robbing and entire pub is excruciating. Utterly masterful and utterly excruciating. An underhanded confidence-trick played once on the page, it's amplified through by the screenplay to become so unfeasible that it somehow just works completely. All the while underlining the character-flaws in everybody on the screen. T2 embodies a pastime which has been made more popular and accessible than ever in the twenty-first century: looking on in gleeful, satisfied awe at the poor decision-making of others, ignoring the quiet voice at the back of your brain reminding you that you're no better.

I can see this movie getting some serious play at my house...

Trainspotting, pretty much.



While you still can, yes.



It does.



Maybe not best of everyone involved, but certainly in the top-half of their CV.



Absolutely not.



There isn't.



Level 1: Obi-Wan Kenobi's in this.
Plus, at the end of the movie there's a kid outside Renton's childhood home playing with a toy lightsaber. A blue one as well, so I think it's safe to assume that's a self-referential easter-egg? I mean it'd be a bit weird for someone to bring that to the set and have it be Anakin's saber, wouldn't it?





*¹ That said… while I think we'd all agree that Irvine Welsh deserves a repeat appearance in this movie, you'd think that at some point in the last twenty years he'd have taken some acting lessons, no? And while I'm on, in that scene where Spud steps out of the boxing-gym and has a flashback looking down the road, the repeatedly alternating camera-angles make the continuity-gaffe with his sweatshirt (on/off his shoulder) glaringly obvious. And also while I'm on moaning, can someone have a gentle word with Danny Boyle and point out that soundtracking a film by hitting shuffle on your iPod only works if you have good taste in music to begin with? Much like its predecessor, T2's soundtrack features three good tunes and the rest is padded out with bland filler. Ridiculous. ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: T2 Trainspotting

T2 Trainspotting
Cert: 18 / 117 mins / Dir. Danny Boyle / Trailer

"Nostalgia. That's why you're here. You're a tourist in your own youth…"
~ Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson, T2.

If only all sequels were as self-aware. Packed with callbacks and flashbacks, director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge and author Irvine Welsh's long awaited sequel rolls into the station twenty one years after the last service. While the film is far from a rehash, it relies heavily on the dynamics (and clips) of its predecessor to exist. It also doesn't care whether that bothers you or not. With Renton (Ewan McGregor) back from his nervous exile in Amsterdam, Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller) now running his aunt's pub in Leith, Spud (Ewen Bremner) still struggling to stay off heroin and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) freshly out of prison, the boys are older but absolutely no wiser. As coincidence and desperation join forces to push the four back together again, Sick Boy's latest girlfriend/business partner Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) acts as the prism through which we get reacquainted. With scores to settle and new deals on the table, the boys are back in town…

This is, it has to be said, a film for fans of Trainspotting. As you might well expect. Occasionally too fixated on its predecessor for its own good, but that's all part of the forced nostalgia vibe, as quoted above. Not as much 'fun' as 1996 outing, but certainly not as prone to utter despair, either. This is the film that's realised it's apparently grown up and doesn't know how it's supposed to act, a feeling which will probably resonate with Generations X and Y in the audience. The screenplay borrows from Welsh's sequel novel Porno and retrospectively from Trainspotting without committing to being a true adaptation of either. As befits the characters we know and love/hate.

The four leads pick up the reins effortlessly, inhabiting their old personas with an ingrained weariness that is no doubt helped by twenty years of being a jobbing actor. Various secondary-characters from the first movie pop up, with screen-time not unlike that which they had the last time (I'm fairly certain they only feel so familiar to me because of how many times I've watched Trainspotting over the years). And threatening to outshine them all is the aforementioned Anjela Nedyalkova, but sadly we don't get to know Veronika as much as I'd have liked. Although given her role in the film, I suspect that's entirely intentional.

In T2*¹, echoes of a shared past rearrange into the mistakes of the present and regrets of the future. In any other film this could be lazy writing, but here it's a sign that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Like gangsters, psychopaths and monsters, we can spend time with this bunch of utter misfits in the cinema so that we don't have to associate with them in real life. Grinning at their excesses, wincing at their follies and laughing at their stupidity.

Compelling yet charmless; gloriously and selfishly nihilistic. T2 Trainspotting is, in the best way, a film which stopped giving a fuck two decades before it was made. Choose life, indeed...

Well let's be honest, Trainspotting.



If you want to see it, you'll want to see it a) big and b) loud and c) soon.



It does.



As much as I loved it, I'm not sure I'd go that far.



Hell, no.
This film is not for everybody.



There isn't.



Level 1: Obi-Wan Kenobi's in this.





*¹ Although while I'm on, what kind of title is "T2 Trainspotting", anyway? Obviously you can't properly market a film called 'Porno', but at least have a think about what rolls off the tongue, eh?

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.