(J.J. Abrams, 2015)
I am one of Generation Star Wars.
Seeing the first two films in a double-bill around 1982 was a formative event in my childhood and, lame and corny though it sounds, helped to turn me into the person I am today. I accept the value of the myth created by George Lucas, I understand how it has shaped and turned popular culture, and in some ways, I've been waiting for this film for thirty-odd years. I know I brought a few metric tons of baggage into the cinema with me when I went to see The Force Awakens.
With that said, this is a good piece of genre entertainment, not a great one. The narrative is a bit of a mess, but so many other elements are excellent that they offer no little compensation. The story focuses on the search for a vanished Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a quest which involves both sides of a conflict in a galaxy now overseen by a Republic. Those sides are the Resistance, led by Leia (Carrie Fisher), now a General; and the First Order, an Empire-worshipping army led by Supreme Commander Snoke (voiced by Andy Serkis) whose leadership includes a new version of the Darth Vader-Grand Moff Tarkin duo in Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Commander Nux (Domhnall Gleeson). That suggests one of the issues with this film: it has a karaoke feel to it, with almost every single element recalling or referring to one from the original trilogy.
Take the heroes: Rey (Daisy Ridley) is a scavenger who we first encounter alone and shiftless on a desert planet, just like Luke at the start of Star Wars. Finn (John Boyega) is a scrapper who makes one decision after another and winds up up to his neck in the Resistance, despite starting the film as a Stormtrooper. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is a cocksure, witty X-Wing Pilot, seemingly blustering and improvising his way through sticky situations, just like Han Solo when we first encountered him.
Speaking of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), he and Chewbacca show up too, going about their roguish smuggling business and drawn back into a conflict centred around the Force, just like they were in Star Wars.
Not only that; there is basically a new Death Star. There is a climactic light sabre duel. There is an X-Wing dogfight with Tie Fighters. There is a snowy planet. There is a cantina scene, complete with odd music. There is a wise old alien who knows more than she lets on and dispenses advice, informed by her awareness of the Force. There is the death of an old, mentor character at the hands of a younger character, who was once close to him.
Abrams takes Star Wars itself as a sub-sub-genre; sci-fi by way of space opera, and as all that quotation and repetition suggests, he is extremely faithful to the conventions of that sub-sub-genre. Perhaps too much so, in that this film is never really surprising, with even its twists reminiscent of twists from the original trilogy. But then a massive part of the pleasure here is that this film feels like Star Wars in a way none of the prequels really did.
And then there are the virtues that Abrams brings: he has always been good on character, and the characters here are fascinating. Take Kylo Ren's volatile brattishness (he is just the way Anakin Skywalker should have been in the prequels), soulfully played by Adam Driver. Or Daisy Ridley playing Rey and her gradual awakening to who and what she may be (accusations that her character is a "Mary Sue" seem ignorant of the "hidden Prince" trend which has been popular in the fantasy genre for decades, and of which she seems a prime example) as a frightening and then exhilarating journey. John Boyega's Finn, meanwhile, is the most entertaining of the three, finding himself while wisecracking and double-taking the whole time. The older characters, meanwhile, show up just like old friends, the changes in them moving and amusing in equal measure. Harrison Ford in particular seems to be having a good time as Solo, and he manages to play a few difficult moments with a lot of emotion and wit.
Abrams other chief strengths are aesthetic - his films are usually incredibly pacy, and The Force Awakens whips along throughout its two hour twenty running time, never really pausing for breath. That is useful, when the story is as messy and occasionally stupid as this one is. Another compensation is the visceral physicality of his storytelling. There have never been moments in Star Wars films like some of the shots here - Tie Fighters appearing against the sun, Storm Troopers waiting in a shuddering drop-ship.
Above all, Abrams knows how to make his films fun. The Force Awakens is stuffed with gags, great action beats, nice character moments and rich detail, and it is entertaining from start to finish, with a few passages which have resonance and emotion throbbing through them. It also sets up Rian Johnson's Episode VIII in a manner which suggests it has a great chance of becoming another Empire Strikes Back. Lets hope so. For now, The Force Awakens is a definitive statement - Star Wars is back, and it's good again. Whew.
Showing posts with label J.J. Abrams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J.J. Abrams. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 December 2015
Monday, 13 May 2013
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
(JJ Abrams, 2013)
Strange that after expending so much energy to create an entirely different (but consistent in continuity terms) branch in time for his reboot of Star Trek, Abrams goes straight back to the well here, lifting scenes, situations and characters directly from the greatest of the original run of Star Trek films, Nicholas Meyer's 1982 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
And early on, you almost believe he might pull it off. This film is so confident and bold from the off, dropping right into the action as Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Ships Doctor "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban) flee an alien race during an attempt to save their nascent species from destruction by an active volcano. Kirk and Bones are such strong, archetypal figures that no introduction is necessary - this does feel like an episode in a long-running series at that point. The other familiar characters are all introduced in the same scene; science officer Mr Spock (Zachary Quinto), who is ying to Kirk's yang, communications officer Lt Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and engineer Scotty (Simon Pegg), alongside the more thankless Misters Sulu (John Cho) and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin). Also introduced is Abrams' breathless, epic approach to action scenes, all spectacle, lens flares (more on those in a moment) and ceaseless movement, interrupted by the occasional awed shot of something massive (usually in this film an enormous spacecraft).
Then the plot kicks in; a Federation agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, utterly stealing the film) appears to be waging a one man terrorist campaign against the Federation itself. After losing his mentor Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) in one of Harrison's attacks, Kirk and the Enterprise are dispatched to the Klingon homeworld to hunt him down. Only everything is much more complicated than it at first appears, and even Harrison has more to him than is obvious on the surface...
Welded to all of this is a learn-and-grow character arc for Kirk which never really makes much sense for the character or the film. Pine is good - his Kirk honours William Shatner but is very much his own take - but the film doesn't need this story of his realisation of what it takes to be a leader, and the final act sequence between Kirk and Spock, nodding shamelessly towards the far superior scene in Wrath of Khan, is a curiously hollow moment. Wrath of Khan has 20 years of weight pressing upon the relationship of its Kirk and Spock, and the fact that the actors were ageing gave it an undeniable resonance this film cannot hope to replicate. Instead the explicit invitation to compare Star Trek Into Darkness with that older film does Abrams' film few favours.
That is not to say its a complete disaster. The cast are all good, nailing their roles in a few instants. The action rolls along in a pleasurable surge of incident and colour. Abrams' style is mixed; sometimes beautifully concise, others shockingly ugly. His use of lens flares remains a problem, but he can tell a story, and he puts his budgets up on the screen. Its just a bit of a shame he squandered this much of a budget on this story, already so well told once before...
Strange that after expending so much energy to create an entirely different (but consistent in continuity terms) branch in time for his reboot of Star Trek, Abrams goes straight back to the well here, lifting scenes, situations and characters directly from the greatest of the original run of Star Trek films, Nicholas Meyer's 1982 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
And early on, you almost believe he might pull it off. This film is so confident and bold from the off, dropping right into the action as Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Ships Doctor "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban) flee an alien race during an attempt to save their nascent species from destruction by an active volcano. Kirk and Bones are such strong, archetypal figures that no introduction is necessary - this does feel like an episode in a long-running series at that point. The other familiar characters are all introduced in the same scene; science officer Mr Spock (Zachary Quinto), who is ying to Kirk's yang, communications officer Lt Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and engineer Scotty (Simon Pegg), alongside the more thankless Misters Sulu (John Cho) and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin). Also introduced is Abrams' breathless, epic approach to action scenes, all spectacle, lens flares (more on those in a moment) and ceaseless movement, interrupted by the occasional awed shot of something massive (usually in this film an enormous spacecraft).
Then the plot kicks in; a Federation agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, utterly stealing the film) appears to be waging a one man terrorist campaign against the Federation itself. After losing his mentor Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) in one of Harrison's attacks, Kirk and the Enterprise are dispatched to the Klingon homeworld to hunt him down. Only everything is much more complicated than it at first appears, and even Harrison has more to him than is obvious on the surface...
Welded to all of this is a learn-and-grow character arc for Kirk which never really makes much sense for the character or the film. Pine is good - his Kirk honours William Shatner but is very much his own take - but the film doesn't need this story of his realisation of what it takes to be a leader, and the final act sequence between Kirk and Spock, nodding shamelessly towards the far superior scene in Wrath of Khan, is a curiously hollow moment. Wrath of Khan has 20 years of weight pressing upon the relationship of its Kirk and Spock, and the fact that the actors were ageing gave it an undeniable resonance this film cannot hope to replicate. Instead the explicit invitation to compare Star Trek Into Darkness with that older film does Abrams' film few favours.
That is not to say its a complete disaster. The cast are all good, nailing their roles in a few instants. The action rolls along in a pleasurable surge of incident and colour. Abrams' style is mixed; sometimes beautifully concise, others shockingly ugly. His use of lens flares remains a problem, but he can tell a story, and he puts his budgets up on the screen. Its just a bit of a shame he squandered this much of a budget on this story, already so well told once before...
Monday, 8 August 2011
SUPER 8
(J.J. Abrams, 2011)
Steven Spielberg's influence is so thorough and complete in the ways we produce, market and consume Blockbuster Cinema that it is difficult to overstate the effect his work has had upon American film. But few films dare to ape Spielberg's actual style or interests. For his follow-up to Star Trek, J.J. Abrams got Spielberg involved as a producer, and the result, the gently 80s-retro Super 8, is no less than a Spielberg pastiche, using Spielbergian visual motifs, Spielbergian music, accessing Spielbergian biographical detail - the geeky teens making their own movie - in a Spielbergian setting (generic yet idealised lower middle-class small-town America) all in an attempt to evoke a big Spielbergian surge of awed, dewy emotion.
That much it does well. There are many good things here: the core group of boys are terrific; playing recognisable types, they share a beautifully unforced chemistry as they bicker and make each other laugh in what is one of the best portrayals of boyhood friendship I've ever seen. Abrams excels with all of the set-up: the situation of the young hero, living with his widowed Father, his crush on a girl from school, and the enthusiasm and energy they all put into making their super-8 zombie movie is all grounded in a vividly atmospheric world with a tangible sense of place. Kyle Chandler, so consistently excellent on television in Friday Night Lights, is good here also, while Noah Emmerich is an effortlessly hissable military villain.
But that is part of the problem with Super 8; early on, it's a charming, nicely observed, impeccably shot (except for Abrams' habitual overuse of lens flares, which crop up again and again) story of small town boyhood. The genre component, while authentically Spielberian, is the films weakness. Some of the suspenseful set-pieces are well-done, but mostly it's derivative and horribly over-familiar in conception and execution. The E.T. echoes pile up, only without E.T.s quality. The creature design is almost comically predictable, and the final action sequence tame and anti-climactic.
Of course that's because the real climax is the emotional crescendo reached in the final scene, where Abrams seeks to evoke the big emotional thunderclaps familiar from early Spielberg. Only he never quite pulls it off. Michael Giacchino's soundtrack does much of the work, but Gacchino is no John Williams, and Abrams, for all his efforts, is no Spielberg, and so it ends on an emotional surge, but perhaps not quite as powerful as it could be.
Steven Spielberg's influence is so thorough and complete in the ways we produce, market and consume Blockbuster Cinema that it is difficult to overstate the effect his work has had upon American film. But few films dare to ape Spielberg's actual style or interests. For his follow-up to Star Trek, J.J. Abrams got Spielberg involved as a producer, and the result, the gently 80s-retro Super 8, is no less than a Spielberg pastiche, using Spielbergian visual motifs, Spielbergian music, accessing Spielbergian biographical detail - the geeky teens making their own movie - in a Spielbergian setting (generic yet idealised lower middle-class small-town America) all in an attempt to evoke a big Spielbergian surge of awed, dewy emotion.
That much it does well. There are many good things here: the core group of boys are terrific; playing recognisable types, they share a beautifully unforced chemistry as they bicker and make each other laugh in what is one of the best portrayals of boyhood friendship I've ever seen. Abrams excels with all of the set-up: the situation of the young hero, living with his widowed Father, his crush on a girl from school, and the enthusiasm and energy they all put into making their super-8 zombie movie is all grounded in a vividly atmospheric world with a tangible sense of place. Kyle Chandler, so consistently excellent on television in Friday Night Lights, is good here also, while Noah Emmerich is an effortlessly hissable military villain.
But that is part of the problem with Super 8; early on, it's a charming, nicely observed, impeccably shot (except for Abrams' habitual overuse of lens flares, which crop up again and again) story of small town boyhood. The genre component, while authentically Spielberian, is the films weakness. Some of the suspenseful set-pieces are well-done, but mostly it's derivative and horribly over-familiar in conception and execution. The E.T. echoes pile up, only without E.T.s quality. The creature design is almost comically predictable, and the final action sequence tame and anti-climactic.
Of course that's because the real climax is the emotional crescendo reached in the final scene, where Abrams seeks to evoke the big emotional thunderclaps familiar from early Spielberg. Only he never quite pulls it off. Michael Giacchino's soundtrack does much of the work, but Gacchino is no John Williams, and Abrams, for all his efforts, is no Spielberg, and so it ends on an emotional surge, but perhaps not quite as powerful as it could be.
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