Film Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

It's about time someone made a good Star Wars movie. It's taken nearly forty years, but director J.J. Abrams has finally made an entry in this franchise that I could watch without wincing. To be fair, The Empire Strikes Back was pretty good, but that was because George Lucas handed the directing chores to Irvin Kershner, an old pro with a solid, if unspectacular, filmography. Three of the next four films were directed by Lucas and the results proved that George was something of an alchemist; he was able to turn the base metal of his negligible talent into box office gold.

As you may have guessed, I've never cared for the Star Wars films. I didn't see the original film until 1979, two years after it came out. I was twenty-two, had one year of film school under my belt, my favourite directors were Sidney Lumet and Sergio Leone, and I may have been a film snob. When I finally saw Star Wars I was astounded by the special effects and utterly gobsmacked by the bad acting, rubbish dialogue, and spastic action sequences. The subsequent films directed by Lucas added more proof to my conviction that he shouldn't be allowed near actors, a typewriter or a Panaflex camera.

The Force Awakens is, more or less, a reboot of the first film in the series, with the Death Star being upsized to a Death Planet. The Empire (now called the First Order) is a firm believer in the "go big or go home" adage when it comes to weapons of mass destruction, although after this latest expensive setback they'll probably be considering using Death Uber. Anyway, if you've seen the first one you've pretty much seen The Force Awakens. What makes this one such a pleasure is that is everything about the film that requires imaginative skill is done with wit, energy and professionalism. The acting is almost uniformly excellent, the script is smart, witty and lean, and Abrams, unlike Lucas, knows how to choreograph the non-space action scenes. The actors are led by Daisy Ridley as Rey, who I like to think of as Keira Knightley 2.0. That's a compliment. John Boyega as Finn, the renegade strormtrooper, was a revelation to me. I hated him in Attack the Block, but here he steals just about every scene he's in. Harrison Ford is reliably grumpy and cocky. And all the actors get dialogue that's blissfully unclunky and frequently funny

One aspect of the previous films that remains untouched is the determined avoidance of anything to do with sexuality or romantic relationships. The Stars Wars universe is a chaste universe, almost Victorian, in fact. Across the seven films in the franchise there's been some mild flirting, a very few kisses, and only one out and out romance: the union between Annakin and Padme that results in Luke's birth. This last episode is also notorious as perhaps the most badly written, acted and directed section in any of the films. You get the feeling Lucas hated having to film this subject matter. Not that Lucas is a prude. His American Graffitti is all about rambunctious teenage hormones. What Lucas probably realized was that part of the appeal of his films was that they offer a universe free from the angst, terror, tension and embarrassment of desire. This is a universe in which the characters (and the audience) only have to be concerned with issues of bravery, loyalty, resourcefulness, and derring-do. No one worries about being popular or loved. I think this is the ingredient x that made these films such a massive hit with the 8-24 demographic. Star Wars was, and is, their "safe place," a world that offers a holiday from the scary land of personal relationships.

There are some problems. The latest R2D2 iteration, a droid called BB-8, apparently comes with an algorithm that forces it to do something cute every second time it appears on screen. This got old very fast and for the next film I hope our lovable little droid is clubbed into scrap with the cold, dead body of an Ewok. The chief bad guy and Darth Vader fanboy is Kylo Ren, who (SPOILER AHEAD) turns out to be the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia. This seems like a colossal case of bad parenting, but the whole issue is kind of glossed over. Oh well, every family's got to have at least one world-destroying megalomaniac with a helmet fetish. Finally, Oscar Isaac gets the role of Poe Dameron, a gung ho fighter pilot who whoops and hollers as he goes into combat. You get the idea that his role will be expanded in the next film, but what they're starting with is pretty poor. Poe is a grab bag of cliches, and it wastes Isaac's talents in a big way. Also, what's up with that name? Am I missing some in-joke or connection to Con Air? The Nicolas Cage character in that film was named Cameron Poe. Is this a hint that Cage will be the big reveal in the next film? Will he be pulling off a helmet and announcing that he's somebody's long-lost relative? Please let him be Han Solo's younger, crazier, weird-ass brother--Charlie Solo.

Ten Good Things In Ten Crap Films

The law that states that even a blind squirrel will occasionally find a nut also says that buried within the reeking compost of bad films one can sometimes find a black truffle of cinematic excellence. And here they are:

10. Mr. Billion (1977)

This one starred Terence Hill, an Italian actor (real name Guido Falcone) that Hollywood tried to turn into an international star in several grisly films in the mid-1970s. Hill always looked glassy-eyed and wooden, rather like a reluctant student in an ESL class. This film has him trying to claim an inheritance in the U.S. with the help of Slim Pickens. The gem in this movie is a scene in which Pickens discovers that his beloved trailer home has been destroyed. Pickens grief is so real you'll actually feel your throat tightening.

9. Alligator (1980)

Yes, indie film hero John Sayles wrote the screenplay, but it's still a cheapo creature feature. The best thing in Alligator is Robert Forster, who delivers an amazing performace, particularly in a throwaway scene involving a suicide bomber who walks into a police station. Quentin Tarantino gave Forster the lead in Jackie Brown 17 years later largely because of his performance in this film.

8. Zardoz (1974)

The title character is a faux god whose giant head floats over Irish hills and moors bellowing out commands to his barbaric, post-apocalyptic followers. The head is a great magical/fantastical image. The rest of the movie is completely mad and bad, starting with Sean Connery's fetish wardrobe and ending with a plot that resembles a stoner's idea for a R-rated Star Trek episode.

7. Star Wars (1977)

I realize I'm in the minority position when I call Star Wars a crap film, but I just can't get past the bad dialogue and acting (Sir Alec excepted). The opening scene, however, with Princess Leia's space ship being chased by Vader's ship still gives me a thrill. Why? Because this was the first time special effects were truly special. I can remember being in the theatre and thinking that the film world was about to change. And then Carrie Fisher opened her mouth and everything went to hell.

6. Fraulein Doktor (1969)

I can't remember much about this film except that it was a mediocre spy story set in WW I. What I do remember is the final sequence, which is a poison gas attack by the Germans against the Allied lines. This entire sequence is stunning. It's like an apocalyptic fever dream as imagined by David Lean. The highlight is the sight of the German cavalry's horses completely swathed in gas mask suits. Yes, full suits. It all looks incredibly nightmarish, and Ennio Morricone's score only makes things better.

5. Jurassic Park 3 (2001)

Pterodactyls. I love pterodactyls, and this crap film has a bunch of 'em. It also has William H. Macy looking very uncomfortable as the star of an action film.

4. Godfather III (1990)

It's a toss-up which is worse: the dense, dull plot involving Vatican banking, or Sofia Coppola's acting. What's brilliant is the ending. The last scene is of Michael Corleone, who is living in hiding in Sicily, sitting by himself in the courtyard of a palazzo. He drops dead of a heart attack and the only creature to notice his passing is a dog who barks furiously at the inert body. This is an elegant and painful counterpoint to Vito Corleone's death in his own backyard in America while playing with his grandchild. Vito struggled to escape Sicily and Michael ends up back there as a fugitive. Too bad the ending isn't strong enough to rescue the rest of the film.

3. Excalibur (1981)

So much to choose from: the risible costumes (chrome suits of armour!); Nicol Williamson's performance as Widow Twankey, sorry, I mean Merlin; special effects borrowed from early Dr. Who; and set design from the people who did the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland. And yet the whole thing has a berserk, kitsch entertainment value. It's like watching a train full of clowns and wild animals crash into a building filled with paint, helium and fireworks; you don't know what's going to happen next, but it'll definitely be worth watching. And congrats to director John Boorman for putting two films (Zardoz was the other) on this list.

2. Zabriskie Point (1970)

Even by director Michelangelo Antonioni's elliptical, opaque standards this was an unholy mess. The story, what little there is of it, is a clumsy diatribe against Western consumerism and capitalism. His first misstep was hiring two non-actors for the lead roles. The male lead, Mark Frechette, later robbed a bank and died in prison. The female lead was Daria Halprin and she suffered a worse fate when in 1972 she married Dennis Hopper. The good bit? The last five minutes of the film shows a huge house planted in the middle of the desert blowing up good, real good. Antonioni lets us see its destruction from more than a dozen angles, with lots of slo-mo, and adds in gratuitous shots of fridges, bookcases, and other things blowing up. Think of it as the art house version of Jackass.

1. King Kong (1976)

More than 40 years after the original was made, the best innovation Hollywood could come up with was special make-up effects guru Rick Baker stuck inside a gorilla suit. It was a very nice gorilla suit, probably purchased on Rodeo Drive, but it was still just a suit. The other special effects, what little there was of them, were equally lame, and the plot and dialogue were no better than the average episode of The Love Boat. The diamond in the dross was Jeff Bridges, an actor who throughout his career has been cursed with appearing in ambitious films that fall flat on their face: TRON, Heaven's Gate, Tucker: The Man and his Dream, Starman, and even TRON: Legacy. Despite the dodgy films, Jeff is always a great actor, and in Kong he acts up a storm. When he's on the screen you can almost pretend that you're watching a good film.

Film Review: Grand Prix (1966)

One of the big complaints leveled against films like Transformers and Cowboys & Aliens is that so much intelligence and artistry goes into programming the computers that spit out the CG images, none appears to be left for the script. The result, many critics say, is that we're left with compelling special effects sequences attached to a lot of bad dialogue and clunky plots. Not like in the good old days when Hollywood cared about plot, character and dialogue, right? Uh, no.

In the pre-Star Wars days the word studios and filmmakers used instead of CGI or special effects was "spectacle." And spectacle meant you were going to get hordes of extras, exotic locales, and big, long, complicated action sequences. Lawrence of Arabia is probably the definitive spectacle film in the same way that Avatar is the ultimate (for now) special effects film. Grand Prix was one of the big spectacle films of its time.

I have only previously seen Grand Prix on TV, and that was in b&w and over twenty years ago. After just seeing it on DVD on a big screen I'd have to say it counts as the Transformers of its day. The spectacle part is truly spectacular. The story follows four different drivers over the course of one Formula One season, and along the way John Frankenheimer, the director, stages four races that are definitive in their excellence. If you set out today to film a Formula One race, even using all the latest technology, it's impossible to imagine doing a better job than Frankenheimer did. The pacing, the camerawork, the editing, it's all perfect.

But now we come to the other half of the equation: that part of the script that's not devoted to vroom-vroom. It's godawful. Away from the track our drivers, played by James Garner, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford, and Antonio Sabato, find themselves in romantic entanglements with three women, played by Jessica Walter, Eva Marie Saint and Francoise Hardy. Note the disparity in numbers. This is because Garner and Bedford find themselves fighting for the affections of Jessica Walter. Each romantic sub-plot is worse than the next, and they go on and on and on. Montand and Eva Marie Saint have the dullest extramarital affair in history, and Sabato and Hardy, neither of whom appear to speak English, have a romance that feels like a role-playing exercise in an ESL class.

Not only is the romantic stuff rancid, it's not even filmed with any technical competence. Some of the interior sequences are harshly lit, and camera shadows are plainly visible in more than a few shots. I strongly suspect that Frankenheimer, exhausted or otherwise occupied by planning the race sequences, handed off these scenes to a second unit director. At least I'd like to believe that, because Frankenheimer was normally just as good at directing non-action sequences. So next time you hear someone say that CGI is killing storytelling, bear in mind that Hollywood has always sacrificed story for spectacle. Most of the toga epics of the 1950s and early '60s (think Cleopatra, Ben-Hur) were just as empty-headed and spectacular as The Green Lantern or Battle Los Angeles.