Review: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

Director: J.J. Abrams
Runtime: 135 minutes

Everyone who cares even a little about Star Wars has their own set of expectations for the next wave of films. Films 1 - 6 (technically 4-6/1-3) spawned such a vast empire of media that story options for a new trilogy seem endless. And yet, by reaching back to what made audiences flip out for A New Hope in 1977, director J.J. Abrams has taken on a herculean task and somehow delivered. The Force Awakens, despite years of expectations and millions and millions of dollars powering it, carries the same scrappy spirit of George Lucas' first journey to a galaxy far, far away. The final product, regardless of whether or not you were caught up in the hyper machine, has its flaws, mostly when it comes to balancing the old and the new. And unlike the much-maligned prequels (galactic senate meetings, midichlorians, the shadow of Jar Jar Binks), The Force Awakens is a legitimate fresh start for the series, with a speedy plot that takes audiences from planet to planet and starship to starship. Even with nods and winks to the audience, this is, finally, the 21st century Star Wars movie we both wanted and needed. 

Abrams, Disney, and Lucasfilm have tried to keep as much of The Force Awakens under wraps, and even though the movie is out now, I'll do my best to refrain from spoilers. Even so, in terms of structure, there isn't much to spoil. For better and for worse, Abrams and co-writer Michael Arndt have stuck with Lucas' concept of having the trilogies "mirror" each other in terms of plot developments and character arcs.

This concept has ups and downs, but it mostly works as a pleasing middle ground compromise. Despite the PG-13 rating, The Force Awakens doesn't try to get away with as much as it can (versus, say, The Dark Knight), as it's trying to bring in old fans and stir the imaginations of new ones who might not even be 10 yet. Diehards looking for the franchise to leap forwards and mature (in the way the Harry Potter books and then films did) might be left wanting. When making a movie that's designed to please as many people as possible while also playing to a core fanbase, it's hard to come up with something that checks off every box.

The sense of compromise (pandering seems a bit too harsh/negative) that permeates The Force Awakens might seem like a red flag, but it's far from a dealbreaker. When it comes to the "mirroring" aspect, the film's hit-to-miss ratio winds up being rather good. This is especially true of the first hour or so, which is almost entirely filled with the next generation of heroes and villains. Among the good eggs are desert scavenger Rey (the instantly-winning Daisy Ridley), AWOL stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega, a charming and bumbling accidental do-gooder), and ace pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac, cutting loose and having fun with limited material). If ever there was a sign that this Star Wars was a creation of modern times, it's the much needed diversity found among this key trio. 

Yet where there is light, there is also darkness. The Sith and the Empire may be extinct, but that hasn't stopped a new wave of devotees from arising. Most compelling is the masked and hooded Kylo Ren (Adam Driver...yes the guy from Girls), a temperamental student of the Dark Side with a Darth Vader complex. He is the film's own mirror for Rey, a mysterious loner drawn to the supernatural gifts of the Force, and his desire to hide his past is one of The Force Awakens' most compelling angles. 

And with so much going on in The Force Awakens (starting anew while also tying into the original films), the actors deserve immense praise for being so charismatic in their roles. The film hops and skips around so much, and the characters could have gotten lost in the shuffle. Yet even when Abrams pushes his young leads to go a little too broad (we get it, they're in over their heads/wide eyed with amazement), the actors still deliver. Ridley and Boyega are a great deal of fun as a pair of loners forced together by chance (or maybe fate...), and Isaac's swagger further grounds the film in a tone more in line with the adventure serials that originally inspired Star Wars. Driver is a hoot as well, especially as his mood and presence adjusts when he removes his helmet. 

So much of what's new is so invigorating that the arrival of characters from the first films throws off The Force Awakens' balance. As pure nostalgia it's bliss to see Harrison Ford back as Han Solo. But as Solo becomes integral to the plot, The Force Awakens starts sliding a little too far backwards. The new torchbearers of the franchise slip into the backseat for a while, leaving the midsection a bit rudderless. Seeing Han and Leia together is great on its own, but it's hard not to think that such scenes might have been better spent developing Rey, Finn, etc...

Despite this issue, Abrams brings it all home in the final stretch, even though the conclusion boasts the most overtly derivative moments from a structural standpoint. It takes a while to get there, but Abrams and Arndt do thankfully get around to resetting the chess board for future installments. Like any good adventure saga, The Force Awakens wraps up enough to function as a self-contained story, yet also ends in a way that begs for another chapter. In these final stages, Abrams restores the earnestness and charm of the series while also boldly positioning it for bigger and better things. And, at the very least, Abrams managed to combine a 'hello' to the next generation with a proper 'goodbye' to the old. It's hard to ask for more than that. 

Grade: B

Review: "Star Trek: Into Darkness"

Director: JJ Abrams
Runtime: 132 minutes

The fun of a sequel (at least on paper) is that the groundwork for the characters has already been established. This allows future installments to hit the ground running, and build up bigger, more epic plots that can produce thrills on a grander scale. The most obvious recent example of this trend is Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, which took the foundation of Batman Begins and introduced a darker, larger narrative, along with a more potent villain and higher stakes.

 JJ Abrams, on the other hand, has opted for an oddity of a sequel in his reboot of the Star Trek film franchise. Like its predecessor, Star Trek: Into Darkness has slick visuals, a good sense of humor, and fun set pieces. It also boasts a more enjoyable and menacing villain. On the other hand, Abrams' film feels strangely limited in scope, due to the script's initially choppy plotting. Overall, Into Darkness is a solid follow-up to Abrams' 09 film, yet it can't help but feel like a step in the wrong direction when it comes to narrative ambition.

Thankfully, the lighthearted opening sequence quickly re-establishes the best traits of the last film. The thrills are there, and, more importantly, so are the laughs. Though certain returning characters get little to work with (including Zoe Saldana's Uhura), the dynamics across the ensemble are still handled with a swift effortlessness. As the film's co-leads, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto continue to delight. Their chemistry has remained firmly intact, and it's capable of infusing even the darkest moments with flashes of wit. Yet where Quinto was quite easily the MVP in the previous film, it's Pine who's the real surprise this time around. Kirk's existential conflicts aren't as inherently as interesting as Spock's, yet the way the script pushes the character (and the actor playing him) to his emotional limits is a tremendous boon. Of the returning supporting players, Karl Urban and Simon Pegg continue to have a ball as Bones and Scotty. John Cho's Sulu, refreshingly, also gets a few brief moments to steal the spotlight.

However, much like The Dark Knight, the real draw of Into Darkness is the villain. And while Benedict Cumberbatch's John Harrison (a rogue Star Fleet agent) may lack any nasty scars or colorful clown make-up, he's still a memorable force to be reckoned with. Cumberbatch is no stranger to playing slightly detached, hyper-intelligent characters. Yet unlike his excellent work on BBC's Sherlock, Harrison allows the actor to take that intelligence (along with his commanding deep voice) and slather on a nice thick layer of menace. Cumberbatch rarely raises his voice throughout the film, and his expression is often a mask. The actor largely allows his intonations to carry the character, and it works. From the beginning, Harrison is a mystery. As such, it's fitting that he becomes more expressive as his identity emerges. He's a blank canvas because that's what he needs to be for his own purposes (and possibly others').

Unfortunately, to get to the real meat of Into Darkness' plot and characterization, one has to endure a surprisingly clunky opening act. After the fun opening, the script then jumps around between drama at Star Fleet (Kirk loses command of the Enterprise), and Harrison's first attack on London. Then there's the matter of Harrison's possible connections to the bellicose Klingons, who threaten Earth's peaceful galatic explorations. Once everything comes together, there are a nice number of a-ha moments. By contrast, the first half's material is more obligatory than fully engaging. Abrams seems to agree. Barring the opening, the action sequences in the first half or so feel like they're being directed on autopilot. Given the immense charm of the cast, the film is never in danger of dragging. At the same time, there are moments where Into Darkness seems to coast along like a perfectly engineered machine that's also completely devoid of any true verve or personality. Rather than bring something new to the table, the first half of the film feels like more of the same, only without the fresh energy that Abrams brought to the table four years ago. 

Without that same energy, many of the early set-pieces lack true tension. There are a few too many times when characters are on the brink of death's door, yet the tone is too light for the stakes to feel real. However, once the various plot threads come together, Into Darkness stops being merely competent, and starts rising to the occasion. A trio of extended action sequences help drive the film to a smashing conclusion, albeit one that ends on a surprisingly small scale. Abrams finally seems fully alert in the director's chair, and drives the film home with equal amounts of glossy thrills and genuine (yet never sentimental) emotion. The whole film is a marvel of sights and sounds (visual effects and scoring are dynamite), yet it's in the second half of the film where they start to really pop. Above all else, the film is worth sticking with just to watch the stunningly put together sequence where the Enterprise plummets down from space and through the Earth's atmosphere. It's the sort of stuff that big budget extravaganzas were made for, and Into Darkness more than delivers.

Yet once the adrenaline of the finale wears off, it's hard not to view the film as mildly underwhelming. When the film works, it works spectacularly. And even when it isn't flowing together smoothly, it has engaging characters and a sense of humor that prevents the film from drowning in self-seriousness. But even as the film reaches some wonderful highs, it still comes off as a bit of a missed opportunity. Into Darkness should have been Abrams' chance to go bigger and bolder. Instead, he's opted for more of same, on roughly the same scale (possibly smaller). That doesn't make Into Darkness a bad film, or a bad movie-going experience. It just makes it a slight step backwards for a franchised that seemed primed for a great leap forward.

Grade: B

Review: "Super 8"

As far as big budget studio tent poles go, Hollywood as been on something of a roll this year. Of the major summer releases, only two (Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and The Hangover II) have earned mostly negative reviews. Yet even though other big movies like Thor and X-Men: First Class have been warmly welcomed, nothing from the big summer roster has deserved its positive reception more than JJ Abrams' Super 8.

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Abrams' story wears its influences proudly on its sleeve. All in all, it's something of a mish-mash of The Goonies, ET, and the Abrams-produced Cloverfield. However, in spite of the blatant references and thematic homages, Super 8 manages to stand on its own two legs. To say that a film evokes the 80s is a statement that one could easily take for a sarcastic insult, but in terms of youth-oriented adventure tales, that statement is one of the highest praise, and it most certainly applies to this film. It's rare to find hopeful blockbusters that fit so comfortable inside the PG-13 rating, but this is one such film. At its core, it is both a monster movie and coming-of-age story. We see a group of kids, led by Joe (Joel Courtney) and Charles (Riley Griffiths), something of a pre-adolescent, zombie-loving Orson Welles. There's also Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), as a tough wrong-side-of-the-tracks girl who Charles enlists to help him make his latest monster movie. Along with a small handful of others, these kids are bound by a secret. While trying to shoot a scene for their movie (which Ms. Fanning nails as both an actress and as a character trying to be an actress), they witness a stunning train crash, and believe that someone or something escaped in the aftermath.

And for the first half of its 1 hr 50 min running time, Abrams lets events unfold with note-perfect pacing. With crisp pacing, a nice use of humor, and genuinely effective thrills, Super 8 covers the different angles (monster movie, adventure, pre-teen romance) with great skill and efficiency. Even when it becomes obvious that a scene is about to turn into an attack by the mysterious escapee, the jolts the movie produces are wonderfully well-earned, and devoid of obnoxious music trying to create tension. Super 8 doesn't need a score for its thrilling moments, because Abrams' "monster" remains unseen and unexplained for so much of the film. The attack sequences earn most of their suspense merely from the sheer amount of what the audience doesn't know.

And even though these attacks, at first, happen to characters we don't know or care about, the ensemble of young actors do a fine job of creating a sympathetic and enjoyable group of characters to follow. Mr. Courtney, Mr. Griffiths, and Ms. Fanning in particular do wonderful work in their roles, and scene with Courtney and Fanning together produces possibly the only genuine moment of heart that any summer blockbuster has offered up so far. These are not necessarily full-fleshed out characters, but even the simple touches that Abrams and his actors lend the roles feels so much more authentic than what your typical action/adventure flick is able to muster up.

Unfortunately, Super 8 is a film that starts stronger than it ends. Where the first hour is a perfect balance of character, mystery, humor, and thrills, the second hour starts to rush things along. The more we see of the monster (eventually leading up to plenty of shots that show it in its entirety), the less fearsome it becomes. So even though the second half may boast the film's best sequence (involving an attack on a bus), the big reveal just leaves us with a rather generic creature, with a back story that's quite ordinary. And the closer the film draws to its ending, the more events happen with a degree of convenience towards the plot. I was more than willing to forgive the fact that Alice's car (technically her father's) is left virtually unscathed after the film's stunning train crash. That was merely a blip amid a sequence of events with near perfect pacing and editing. Less acceptable was the snap decision of Joe's father (Kyle Chandler) to suddenly go rogue in a quest for the truth, or the speed with which Joe and his friends are able to obtain help from a local stoner. There is, on a less objectionable note, also a too-fast-for-its-own-good cut that rushes several characters from point A to point B just so that the film can jump straight to its final shot. For a film that starts off with such swift, and yet perfectly balanced pacing, this sudden jump to the nearly dialogue-free ending came as a rather unpleasant shock.

In the grand scheme of the film, however, these issues do not detract from the film to the point of rendering it a mixed bag. This is wonderful entertainment with just the right amount of heart, without ever resorting to schmaltz. It also resists the temptation to create an increasingly bombastic finale. Yes, one sequence does involve the discharge of some serious fire power, but Abrams captures it with such simplicity, never resorting to the Michael Bay tactic of shoving the destruction in your face. It keeps the mayhem confined as to how it directly affects our characters, whether they live, die, or suffer injuries. So even though its ending may be too simple for its own good, Super 8 is a remarkable rarity among summer blockbusters. For whatever cliches and shortcuts the script may have, it remains a work with genuine thrills, a lively (but never obtrusive) sense of humor and playfulness, and an understanding of the fact that emotions and explosions can exist side-by-side.

Grade: B