Date: Saturday December 16 2017
Time: 10am
Location: Cinemark Theater in Stroud Mall
Party: 3 (my mom, sister and I)
Writer/Director: Rian Johnson
Composer: John Williams
Cast:
Luke Skywalker- Mark Hamill
Princess/General Leia Organa- Carrie Fisher (RIP 2016)
Rey- Daisy Ridley
Kylo Ren- Adam Driver
Poe Dameron- Oscar Isaac
Finn- John Boyega
Rose- Kelly Marie Tran
General Hux- Domhall Gleeson
DJ- Benicio Del Toro
Vice Admiral Holdo- Laura Dern
Duration: 151 minute (+ many trailers... 8)
Opening Remarks
Only a movie like this could get me to downtown Stroudsburg this early on a Saturday. Especially when I was up a little late the night before and I had a harrowing drive home from work cuz people were going 20 miles an hour because of 2 measly inches of snow. :sigh:
Anyway, totally worth it. I definitely didn't want to wait too long because I didn't want to hear any spoilers about this one.
I think the only time I caught any spoilers for a movie was accidentally walking in to see the end of Sherlock 2... almost a year of anticipation ruined cuz I got to the theater too early and I've never gotten over it.
The theater had a few open patches throughout the main stadium seating section, but not many for three people, so we took the back row of the "orchestra" section. Roughly the same area where my mom and I saw The Judge back in 2014.
So yeah, those are two rather blatant RDJ references, but the coincidences just kept popping up. I actually had a dream about him last night where we were talking stuff and we had a nice chat. But when I asked Robert when he was going to do any non-Avenger movies, he was evasive about it. Pretty much said that being in the Marvel movies still feels like the best Halloween ever.
And coincidence again... I saw the trailer for the new Avengers movie for the first time today. Among many others... so many dang trailers! and commercials! This 10am movie wound up becoming an 10:20 movie.
Trailers
Spiderman- Into the Spider-verse
I have no idea what the hell is going on with this one. It's animated. We're following a young black teen Spider-man and we see him talking to who appears to be an older Peter Parker, asking how many there are. Dude, what the hell? Why does there have to be multiple Spider-men? It makes the whole storyline of Peter Parker randomly being bitten by a radioactive spider totally pointless. Because it makes him less special.
Early Man
I saw the movie poster for this by the ladies' room and I was saying how we'll see the trailer in the next couple months. Nope! More like the next couple minutes... it's by the same people behind Wallace & Gromit so we have an all British cast. The Stone Age meets the Bronze age, cavemen vs. Vikings (I think??). And how this tribe of cavemen had this thing of hunting rabbits. But with people like Eddie Redmayne, Timothy Spall and so on in this, how can it not be good?
Every Day
Man, after seeing this trailer, I said "I have to read this book"... I somehow get the feeling that movie won't be quite as good as the book, but it's a really cool idea. And I'm sure that the LGBT crowd will love it too because all kinds of relationships come into place. Basically, it's about a girl and another person who wakes up as a different person every day- and each person happens to be someone that this girl knows. Sometimes they're a guy and sometimes they're a girl and the main girl falls in love with this person's soul. So many possibilities, but one thing is clear- it's going to be a tearjerker at the end and it's going to probably suck, but I'm willing to take that risk.
Jurassic World- Fallen Kingdom
I'm afraid the movie is going to get so hyped that by the time it comes out, it's going to be kinda disappointing. I just know my dad is super excited about it and there are very few movies he gets THIS excited about. The two of us had seen every one of these movies in the theater, so that tradition will for sure continue.
The story here seems to be that the island is going to be destroyed by a volcano eruption and Owen and Claire have to try to save all the dinosaurs. Lots of crap happens and we have an Ian Malcolm cameo where he says his most famous line from the original movie "Life will find a way." Well, we shall see, won't we?
Rampage
Yikes, they're hyping up this Dwayne Johnson movie as much as San Andreas and it's probably just as doomed to fail. It's kinda like Mighty Joe Young meets King Kong meets genetic engineering and we have to save a city from being taken over by mutant animals.
Samson
It takes place in 1170 BC in Israel and it's about the Biblical figure infamous for his hair. No idea how this is going to turn out, but at quick glance (and it was a very short quick trailer), they may finally do a Biblical movie where people can't complain about it being whitewashed. If anything, the next movie demonstrates that movies are more diverse than they've ever been
A Wrinkle in Time
I'd heard this movie was coming because Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling are among the cast members. I know it's based on the Madeline L'Engle children's book (which I've never read). It looks a lot more epic than the book entails. It's about this girl whose dad is with NASA and he supposedly disappears and she may discover where he's really been this whole time. The visual effects look amazing and I have no idea what is going on. Maybe with more time and more promotion from the large cast of characters, it'll become more clear
Avengers: The Infinity War
This really was the last trailer they showed- I'm not slotting it last for any special emphasis. But yeah, I think Thanos is coming to Earth looking for the other infinity stones to put on his gauntlets. The Vision has a stone on his forehead and it may be taken away from him. I see Loki, I see Doctor Strange, Black Widow is blonde for some stupid reason (dude, this character is a redhead, you can't bloody change that!)... and maybe Captain America has been off the radar for a while because they seem to be welcoming him back kinda how Superman was welcomed back in the Justice League movie, except Steve Rogers grew his hair out a bit.
Seriously, it looks like EVERYONE in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to be here and lots of crap is going to happen. There isn't much dialogue, more narration, so I don't know what's going on. I just know there were only a couple of Tony Stark/Iron-Man screenshots and when he's out of his armor, Tony just looks lost and confused like his PTSD from Iron-Man 3 is coming back and he can't handle it.
I mean, I'd almost welcome him being killed off because I'm dying for Robert to do some other projects... even though I'm kinda over Tony Stark, it would still be sad to lose him.
Ok, I'm done. Now for...
The Main Event
In a nutshell- Episode VII was about finding Luke Skywalker and the Resistance rebels destroying yet another version of the Death Star.
This movie, Episode VIII is about the aftermath of the former and the Resistance fighting to survive to fight another day while being actively pursued by the First Order.
The way this movie was put together, it almost felt like the subsequent Star Wars movies after the original. The crew is split apart and we're following 3 different groups of characters.
We have Rey on that far-off planet trying to convince Luke Skywalker to rejoin the Rebellion (or in this case, The Resistance) and she's also having several via-the-Force conversations with Kylo Ren.
We have Finn and his new comrade Rose, who are going to another planet to find a code-breaker to help disengage the tracking device that's allowing the First Order to pursue Resistance ships.
And we have Poe Dameron trying by all means necessary to buy them the time to do so.
Of course, we also have a few scenes where we're following the bad guys. General Hux and Supreme Ruler Snoke (who we get to see "in the flesh" in this movie... opposed to a hologram in the previous installment)... but we really care more about the good guys, right?
So, I had one wish for this movie after seeing the previous one... GIVE OSCAR ISAAC MORE SCREEN TIME... the previous movie had him either in the cock pilot or simply M.I.A. after his ship crashed on Jakku (good on him lobbying with J.J. Abrams to not kill off his character and they basically rewrote the movie because of him... after seeing him play a couple of not-so-nice roles, I was really glad what they gave him here).
And boy was my wish granted... couldn't be happier.
The guy is pretty reckless as a pilot, but damn, he's so good at what he does. Of course, that does land him in hot water with authority, but characters like him are always great when they're done by charismatic actors like him. Some pretty hilarious moments. But the best part was where Leia and her Vice Admiral mutually agree about him in their last scene together.. I wish I remembered the exact dialogue, but it was pretty much saying how much of a rebel he is, but despite that, they like him.
Kylo Ren still has a bit of a temper on him and that does come into play. (Particularly in the last battle scene- one of the best scenes in the movie by far and I'm sure people are already talking heaps about it). But we also get to see more of that vulnerable side of him that's conflicted. He and Rey have these odd conversations that randomly start happening, where she learns what happened to him and Luke's Jedi Temple and there seems to be a chance they'll be allies. How things go down, though, it's hard to predict. Even going into the final movie, I don't know how it's going to go and that's kinda exciting.
Some people who saw the last movie complained about him not being threatening because we see him without the mask. Supreme Ruler Snook actually has a bit of dialogue a lot of those people could agree with... don't bother with the helmet because he comes off as (again, I can't remember the exact dialogue) a child wearing a mask.
Domhall Gleeson (son of British acting great Brenden Gleeson) returns as the First Order general, so full of snark, but it's kinda funny how his authority gets undermined throughout this movie. Each person gives him their unique dose of that.
Former Storm Trooper Finn finds a new partner in Rose, whose sister was involved in the big battle scene at the beginning of the movie. She's a new character and in some ways, the heart of the movie. She and her sister came from the very same planet the two of them are visiting to find the code-breaker and we learn how they came from some sad circumstances where they were basically weapons test subjects as children. She's a prime example of why things need to change in the world, why the Resistance exists in the first place. The code-breaker they wind up meeting is played by Benicio Del Toro and like with many of the characters he plays (although I only have his Bond villain to go by personally), you never really know what to expect. Either way, it makes things interesting.
Going by the Empire Strikes Back, I was sure this movie would have a cliff-hanger ending. Throughout the final battle scene (where the Resistance evacuates to another planet with an abandoned rebel base), there were at least 3 moments where I thought the movie would end and I was oddly ok with that. But the way it does, it's not a cliff-hanger, but we are still left wondering how the hell the good guys are going to completely defeat the bad guys.
But in the same fashion as Once Upon a Time (a show I'd been meaning to do a write-up on because I decided last season was my final season. I want nothing to do with it without Emma Swan and certainly not after the previous season finale broke my heart a million times), you always have to have hope...
I'm not giving anything major away, but Luke Skywalker does get involved (with everything that's happened, why wouldn't he?) and it is absolutely epic.
The movie is extremely character-driven and you kinda need to care about these characters to be invested. While it stays true to the mythology of the original trilogy, there are moments of humor that have a modern feel to them. Meaning that they are a little over the top and obvious and sometimes they're self-deprecating.
But this audience really enjoyed this movie. There were laughs at the right times. A couple moments had some cheering because a character got what they deserved. There was even a moment where the movie went dead silent and I heard people making some random comments throughout it, so into it. And of course, we all clapped at the end, because, why wouldn't we? Ultimately, it's movies like this that are the reason why the theater experience exists and why it will never go. Nor should it.
Grade: A
(You can't beat the original and never will... but this was better put than the previous one, which I enjoyed, but there were areas where I thought it could be better. With this one, I have a feeling I'm just going to be finding new things every time I watch it. And sometimes, that's the best part of revisiting movies, other than seeing old friends again)
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