The Last Jedi: Star Wars, According to Hume

As I've mentioned previously on this blog, I'm not a Star Wars fan, but I've become one by proxy because I have so many friends who love the movies. Their enthusiasm was infectious and got me excited in the past two years for The Force Awakens and Rogue One. I wasn't in the country when The Last Jedi premiered, so they all saw the movie without me and raved about how good it was (all except for my curmudgeonly colleague Phil, who seemed to think it was abysmal). Well Phil, I'm shocked to say that I halfheartedly agree with you. Will wonders never cease.

One of the thrills of watching The Force Awakens was hearing the iconic theme song and seeing that opening crawl on the big screen for the first time. That thrill has not subsided, and I was in the tank for this movie when it began. The epic action sequence was an excellent way to kick off, brimming with stellar dogfights and human-droid repartee between Poe Dameron and BB-8. Unfortunately, after that battle, things took a bit of a turn. And perhaps here is where it might have helped to see this movie with my friends instead of by myself at an ungodly hour of the morning.

There's nothing I can really point to as being wrong with this movie. It is perfectly exciting and answers a lot of questions raised in the first (well I guess I should say seventh) installment of the franchise. There is a great deal of character development, and strides to include more women and diverse actors in this universe so that white men don't get all the screen time. But boy, it starts to drag on a bit. From other people's reviews of this movie, I gather that they love the nuance and complexity it brings to the classic fight between the Dark and the Light. But is that what I really watch a Star Wars movie for? Sadly, nope. I'm just a fickle fan who's in it for some lightsaber action.

Look, I get it. This franchise wants to be taken seriously, and writer-director Rian Johnson has done mighty fine work in the past, and continues to do so from a technical standpoint in this movie. The new creatures were fun, the new planets were interesting (I particularly loved the final battle sequence, where the red salt was the most in-your-face-but-PG13 representation of the bloodiness of warfare), and all of the storylines collided in a satisfactory way after everyone spent ages doing their own thing in various locales. But that satisfying conclusion and forceful beginning bracketed a sluggish middle that proved to be far too philosophical for me to handle.

If you're a die-hard Star Wars fan, you will probably love The Last Jedi. If you're not, you might still find much to love from a film-making perspective. Ultimately, I was ambivalent. It had some comedic flashes, action galore, and many badass women, but overall, now that the Force is awake, I find myself uninterested in moral discussions about its use. Unless it involves some lightsabers.