The never-ending story has ended. The last word-crawl about galaxies far away has crawled its way across the John-Williams-fanfared cosmos. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a fitting last movie. It’s long; maddening; fun in bits; fantastic in parts; and so desperate to stir itself into legend that we urge it on, like parents screaming at their tots in an egg-and-spoon race.
Oh go on, Rey (Daisy Ridley), be the story’s striding, radiant, marvel-working Amazon. Oh go on, Finn (John Boyega) and whatever-your-name-is (Oscar Isaac), be the two-man Han Solo the writers so want you to be. (But it takes more than two gamely jobbing tyro-swashbucklers, we realise, to be Harrison Ford.) The only actor in the final series who needs no wishing-on has been Adam Driver. He is its true star. As Kylo Ren, the dark prince, he is so sumptuously troubled, so multidimensionally moody, so craggily crypto-Shakespearean that we believe everything — even, in this new, last film, a moral journey so complex and counterintuitive that it out-switchbacks everyone.
The Empire and the resistance are at it again. Giant oyster shells scream across the voids. Explosions bloom like flowers. A whole bunch of British Isles actors (Domhnall Gleeson, Ian McDiarmid’s ghostly-snarling Emperor, Richard E Grant having a final Withnail-ectomy as menacing General Pryde) stride the cockpits of the Dark Side; while wholesome Americans, two more Brits and a gaggle of droids and beasties fight for the Force.
There are fur’s-breadth ’scapes in the imminent deadly breach. “They’ve got Chewie!” yells Finn — so early it’s not a spoiler — when the walking hearthrug is invited to sample enemy hospitality. (A hundred minutes to go: we know he’ll be back.) More dangerously, C-3PO undergoes brain surgery. Will it damage his nuanced babble; his Jeevesian, even Joycean stream of speaking consciousness?
Last episodes of sagas or series are often no-win propositions. They demand too much. They have to be encompassing; we must re-encounter every main theme and character. (“Can’t leave the party without saying goodbye to . . . ”) So don’t expect death, of an actor or character, to inhibit the completism. I hardly dare ask how Carrie Fisher got to the party, speaking, emoting and decreeing. “Rediscovered unseen footage,” says director JJ Abrams. Seriously? Well then, there must be a Force, negating normal mortality to feed and freshen a mega-franchise.
At the same time a last episode must leave us wanting more. And I’m not sure I do. I have been a paid reviewer for this entire, blow-me-down saga since 1977. Entire rooms and wings of my subconscious are tenanted by Leias and Chewies and Yodas. They disturb me in the night; demand breakfast; surprise me by walking past my windows; play the TV too loud. I can’t say I actually “like” the Star Wars magnum opus. (The best films are still the first two: Stars Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.) But none of us will be the same who have experienced it. Like it or not, they’re part of a family, a parallel family, that will be living with us forever.
★★★☆☆
In cinemas worldwide from today, in the UK tomorrow and the US on Friday
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December 18, 2019 at 05:52PM
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is fun and fantastic (in parts) - Financial Times
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