Here it is - my final and favourite post of the year, the one where I get to indulge my filmic passions and talk effusively about what really turned me on (cinematically speaking) over the twelve months just past. As usual there are a few qualifiers re my choices...
The list is based on films released in the UK during 2019 and therefore can't include titles like 1917, The Lighthouse and Parasite. Plus I haven't seen any of those, which doesn't help at all. It also means that I may include a few picks that had a 2018 release in other territories, but which landed here in the year currently concluding and are no less deserving of my love.
Speaking of films I haven't seen, those include such highly regarded releases as The Farewell, The Peanut Butter Falcon and The Last Black Man in San Francisco. So if/when I catch up with any of those, I'll let you know my thoughts and whether they might have made the top-list. Just don't expect me to re-order everything. That simply ain't gonna happen, because - you know - time.
Finally let me make clear that these are my favourite films of 2019, I'm not making any big statement about which are the most worthy or best. There will be movies that stunned me through sheer technical achievement and those that appealed to me emotionally in a way that others generally don't. So if you agree with my choices, good. If not, well that's the joy of subjective experience. Don't berate me for what I love. Allow me my choices and embrace your own. Okay - prior to the Top Ten, here are my now traditional Honourable Mention Awards (with a couple of Dishonourables thrown in):
Most Singalongable Movie: Rocketman (I really hope my singing was inaudible.)
Best Bromance: Runner-up - Green Book; Winner - Stan and Ollie
Film I Liked More Than Everyone Else: Tolkien
Film Everyone Else Liked More Than Me: Ad Astra
Daftest Film That Still Succeeded In Being Fun: Crawl
Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Runner-up - IT Chapter Two (there were moments to love, just not enough of them); 'Winner' - Godzilla: King of the Monsters (just plain feckin' awful).
Best Film That Managed to be Both an Adaptation of a Sequel Novel and a Sequel to an Adaptation of the Original Novel that Departed Radically from that Novel (anyone follow that?): Doctor Sleep
Comedy That Deserved a Bigger Audience: Runner-Up - Long Shot; Winner - Booksmart
Purest Live-Action Adventure Fun: Runner-Up: - Spider-Man: Far From Home; Winner - Shazam!
The Filmic Forays Low Expectations Award for a Film that was Massively Better Than I'd Expected: Jumanji: The Next Level (a sequel to a sequel that might easily have been a tedious cash-grab but wasn't).
Best Belter of a Performance by Someone who Should be a BONA-FIDE INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR This Time Next Year: Jessie Buckley in Wild Rose
Best Arrival of Someone who now IS a BONA-FIDE INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR: Florence Pugh in Fighting With My Family and two others, more of which later.
Best Reminder That Someone Can Really Act (in a Movie that was Pretty Damn Great Too): Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers
Best Film That Can't Really Be Considered for My Top Ten as it had a Limited UK Release on December 31st 2018 so I'm Sneaking It In as a Kind of Unofficialy Eleventh Top Ten Entry - Deal With It, It's My Blog My Rules: The Favourite (a work of insane genius.)
Right, we're almost there - the most difficult end-of-year Top Ten I've had to compile since Filmic Forays began. I mean I've seen around twenty films (some already mentioned), any of which would have graced the final list quite beautifully. Plus there are a handful which might well rise further in my estimation on future viewings, causing me regret that I haven't put them there. Titles that spring to mind are:
Beautiful Boy (gorgeous, dreamlike and heartbreaking, plus it was formidably well-acted by both Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell)
Us (can't reconcile myself to the ending of Jordan Peele's Get Out follow-up, but so much about this surreal horror was magnificent)
Official Secrets (as good a political thriller as there's been in a long time with Keira Knighley being terrific, while in terms of subject this film really matters)
Ford v Ferrari (I don't watch motor sports, but I'd watch this movie over and over and then a few times more)
Marriage Story (it pains me not to include this one, it's so damn authentic)
Little Women (including the second of those Florence Pugh performances; if anything, this omission pains me even more than the previous one - this list-making business is tough)
Good. My conscience is clear. Pretty much. Here in a somewhat contrived ascending order is my Top Ten. Brace yourself. There's no going back.
10. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
A lot of John Wickianados claim that JW2 is the optimum expression of Wickness. However Chapter 3 took the premise of international assassins, safe-house 'hotels' and arcane rituals and kicked its walls out. Wick went truly global, with our (anti?)hero trekking through desert and city alike in search of an 'out' from the murderous lifestyle he thought he'd abandonded. From its 'on-the-run' opening (a direct follow-on from 2's massive cliffhanger), this film is sustained adrenalin. Its ultra-violent martial arts sequences are more outrageous than before, its visuals more glossily stylised and its entire cinematic world more vividly realised than fans could have dared hope. The ending and the tickets sales both ensure a John Wick: Chapter 4. I for one am not complaining.
9. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
This Oscar-nominated drama got rightfully bigged up for great central performances from Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant. However everything about it matches their beautiful work. The quirky-but-true tale of biographer turned literary plaigerist Lee Israel and her louche partner-in-crime Jack Hock boasts a screenplay that's bitingly witty, along with unfussy but smart direction by Marielle Heller. This is no big splashy blockbuster; it's a painstakingly honed little gem of a film that I loved at every point. Heller's follow-up A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood has yet to open in the UK, but I can't wait to see what she's forged using the creative input of a certain Tom Hanks.
8. Toy Story 4
I thought it was a bad idea - Pixar upping their Toy Story output to four. Why risk sullying the legacy of a perfect trilogy with what could only be an inferior add-on? Well the makers proved me wrong in style. 4 leaves the trilogy intact and gives us instead the further soul-searching adventures of Woody. What begins with a spork's existential crisis takes us into the external world of abandoned toys and a shadowy antiques shop inhabited by a sweet-sinister dolly and her coterie of macabre ventriloquist dummies. The old gang have significant roles to play, but this is more about Woody's new friends - and what a varied and entertaining bunch they prove to be. (Duck and Bunny and Duke Caboom are stand-outs.) This is not only as good as the other Toy Story entries, it's the funniest and most philosophical of the bunch. And it'll still cause a tear or two.
7. Knives Out
A couple walked out early from Knives Out - so one of the attendants at my local Odeon cinema told me - saying it was just an Agatha Christie 'rip-off'. They clearly hadn't given the film much time to unravel, as this Christie homage spends about twenty minutes underscoring all the tropes of the famous crime-writer's work (rambling mansion, slippery cast of suspects, eccentrically brilliant detective), before upending all we've been banking on and doing the story its own brilliant way. Rian Johnson's screenplay is as funny as it is devious, his direction makes the most of the lavish production design and his cast play their (frequently grotesque) characters like the gifts they are. As for the protagonist, that's one of the year's most endearing film creations and not who you'd expect. This is a glorious confection of a movie with some added political bite. That silly couple missed a treat.
6. The Irishman
Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour mobster epic is a serious viewing commitment, but it's totally worth it. Why is Marty revisiting the world of organised crime so thoroughly documented in Goodfellas and Casino? Well because he has a great true story to tell - that of mob hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), who may or may not have been involved in the disappearance of celebrated ex union boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Yes - that is the two American acting greats spending extended screen time together, but it's also Joe Pesci playing a whole other kind of dangerous to his Tommy DeVito Goodfellas character, it's a narrative both sprawling and intimate, it's a fiercely intelligent screenplay by Steve 'Schindler's List' Zaillian and it's Scorsese bringing all his mighty film-making powers to bear on a world no other film-maker knows so well. But what does it have to offer emotionally that's new? Poignancy. Loneliness. Regret. And those elements, more than anything, are what gets it firmly in my Top Ten.
5. Joker
Not just another comic-book movie, Joker now stands with 2017's Logan as a film that expands the genre beyond recognition. Demonstrating more in common with early Scorsese than The Dark Knight, this villain origins story is a dark and twisted yet at points deeply moving character study of a societal misfit who gets pushed deep into psychosis. I could rave about the period production design and vivid colour correction, the daring narrative twists and confrontational political themes, but let's face it - everyone remembers the film chiefly due to Joaquin Phoenix' Joker-in-the-making. As downtrodden professional clown Arthur Fleck, a walking grab-bag of dysfunctionalities, he delivers - and let's not understate this - one of the great film performances of the decade currently concluding. I've only watched Joker once and have a feeling that repeat viewings might have pushed it up this list. It's a disturbing miracle of a movie.
4. Midsommar
Speaking of 'disturbing'... Ari Aster's 2018 supernatural horror Hereditary was an extended exercise in dread that lost some of its audience, me included, in the final demented act. Midsommar, however, held me in its shudder-inducing clutches till the final shocking moments. On one level it's a contemporary retelling of The Wicker Man, a sunlit Scandinavian cult supplying all the creepiness of the 1973 film's murderous Scottish islanders. Going deeper it's about both relationship dysfunction and grief therapy, both experienced in no uncertain measure by central character Dani (played by Florence 'I'm-having-one-hell-of-a-good-year' Pugh). Simultaneously one of the 2019's most aesthetically gorgeous movies and one of its most unsettling, Midsommar left me with a bizarre combination of emotions that I could scarcely unpick without spoiling all. It's both beautiful and appalling and I'll gladly be harrowed by it all over again.
3. Avengers: Endgame
I know some people find comic hero films a turn-off (Martin Scorsese is notable among them), but if you haven't been following Marvel's Cinematic Universe over the past twelve years, then this is the glorious payoff on which you've missed out. Avengers: Endgame could have been one vast superhero smash-em-up. Following on from the catastrophic final twist of Infinity War, however, it's structured into three distinct and very different acts. The first is all about absorbing loss, while slowly and painfully regrouping. The second is a complex, multi-stranded mission involving time-travel and the revisiting of iconic MCU moments. And the final act - well that is one vast superhero smash-em-up, but delivered with verve, style and a the kind of fan service that's been earned over a decade. Plus it included a hug that made me grin and cry at the same time. So I'm a geek - shoot me. This is escapist cinema at its best.
2. If Beale Street Could Talk
My favourite film of 2017 was Moonlight by Barry Jenkins. Happily - oh so happily - it wasn't a one-off. Adapted from James Baldwin's 1974 novel of love and racial injustice, If Beale Street Could Talk is beautiful on multiple levels - its words, its score, its visual poetry, the tenderness of its central characters... But it also brims with anger and is utterly unflinching in its critique of American social justice or the lack thereof. At its heart is the most touching love story of the year - childhood sweethearts Tish and Fonny, who refuse to buckle under pressure of a terrible miscarriage of justice, however star-crossed their romance seems to be. Kiki Layne and Stephan James are sublime in the leads, but it's Regina King as Tish's mother, who will reach gently into your chest cavity and extract your still-beating heart. Jenkins is currently working on TV drama The Underground Railroad. I will be there, watching every unmissable second.
1. Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood
And it's a controversial Number One. Quentin Tarantino's ninth film is my favourite of the year. I'm no knee-jerk QT-worshipper, so this came as a surprise foremost to me. The movie is all about hanging out with Leonardo DiCaprio's struggling actor Rick and his stunt-double/ best pal Cliff in late-60s Los Angeles - you know, the way we did with Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction, only in this new movie it's for most of the damn runtime. Thing is, it works amazingly well. The immersion in time and place is so complete, so vivid, so remarkable in its detail, that Once Upon a Time... enthralls from the opening moment and never lets up. Rick and Cliff are both flawed but intensely magnetic protagonists - a hoot to watch when together, and no less absorbing when pursuing their own adventures. The sequence where Rick attempts to nail his performance in a TV pilot episode had me rivited like no other in 2019. As for the Sharon Tate sub-plot, that cast an air of foreboding over the whole story, only to be resolved in a way that was - well - either shocking and exploitative, or wildly cathartic (or all of it together), depending on individual response. That scene is one part of a whole - and as a whole, I unabashedly loved this film.
And there we have it - my chief sources of filmic delight in this final year of the Twenty-Teenies (or whatever we'll be calling them looking back). With the struggle I had paring them down to a final Ten, it's turned out to be pretty vintage. Will our movie screens provide similar riches in 2020, or will we be fleeing evermore into the bosom of Netflix for our fix of quality movies? I may well write a feature about that - and if I do, there'll be a link HERE. (If I haven't, there won't be.) Annnyway...
For now, Happy New Year and equally Happy New Watching. A fresh decade beckons. It's going to be a whole new ride.
Make it short and spicy - and if the main character is a girl, make sure she's married by the end.
Little Women is as perennial an American story as A Christmas Carol is a British one. Louisa May Alcott's tale of sisterhood and hard-won maturity at the time of the Civil War has already been adapted multiple times for the big screen, most recently in a 1994 version starring Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder. Quite what Greta Gerwig hoped to achieve in the wake of her Lady Bird success by writing and directing another one seemed unclear when it was first announced. But with a shrewd take on the source material and several of her Lady Bird actor-collaborators on board, it turns out she knew exactly what she was doing.
The movie, like the novel, tells of the March sisters, struggling through hard times in their Massachussets home, while their father is off serving with the Union army. Eldest daughter Jo (Saoirse Ronan) has writing aspirations and the least conventional attitude of the four. Meg (Emma Watson) is theatrical, but more traditionally romantic. Beth (Sharp Objects' Eliza Scanlon) is a quiet source of good deeds, while youngest sister Amy (Florence Pugh fresh from Midsommar) is a talented artist, but with her eyes fixed on the prize of a rich husband. The explosion into their lives of wealthy young extrovert Theodore 'Laurie' Laurence (Timothee Chalamet) causes all kinds of ripples, romantic and otherwise. But whether or not any of the girls' dreams can survive into adulthood proves a whole other matter.
The genius of Gerwig's approach to the March girls' story is to combine old with new. The film's look is all lavish, exquisite period detail (visually every scene is set on stun). However the film-maker's approach - in the editing, the use of camera and chiefly the narrative structure - is strikingly contemporary. The use of a dual time-line is a daring strategy, but one that proves integral to the ideas mined by the screenplay from this oft-told tale. Beginning with the fully-grown Jo's attempt to have a book published, this version immediately sets the sisters' faltering adult lives in contrast to the hopes of their girlhood. There's a lustrous glow to the family sequences that sets them in a realm of memory, while the 'now' scenes are shot in the darker hues of experience. It takes a bit of audience adjustment for sure, but (one edit aside that momentarily confused me) ultimately works to powerful dramatic effect.
Of the various paths that Gerwig could have taken through Alcott's vividly detailed novel, she chooses the March girls' search for personal fulfillment. Together they exist in a world bent on narrowing their opportunities as women. The path each one takes, it seems, leads inevitably to compromise. For role models they can draw on the calm strength of their mother Marmee (Laura Dern as warm and loving here as she's steely in Marriage Story) or the grim praticality of their Aunt March (Meryl Streep delivering trademark scene-stealing support). But easy solutions are in short supply. It's a factor that creates the film's dramatic core, drawing sympathy for all four protagonists, the spiky, tricky-to-like Amy included.
Of course it helps that the leads (along with every bit-part player) are so well-cast and directed with such sureness of touch. The result is instant sisterly rapport and sheer vibrancy, along with a naturalism - period dialogue notwithstanding - that's reminiscent of Gerwig's other work. Each of the girls is terrific here, with special mention for two. Ronan carries the narrative through-line while creating a fervently independent character in Jo. Pugh meanwhile proves just as empassioned in her own way, bringing dimension and relatability to that infernal Amy. This pair are among the greatest screen actors of their generation, so it's good that they're both matched in scenes by Chalomet; impressing earlier this year in Beautiful Boy, he now submits another star turn as the charismatic if feckless Laurie. You want dynamism in your Alcott? Put any combination of these three in proximity and just watch it happen.
Here is an adaptation equally concerned with the adults the girls turn into as with their teenage selves. And if the household scenes are often a giddy whirl, the more sober grown-up sequences allow time to reflect for characters and audience alike. It's the kind of audacious treatment you might have hoped for from Gerwig and she delivers right to the final act, where some narrative slight of hand that takes things to a whole new level of brilliance. Expect the world of novel in dazzling colour, along with a radical new twist. This is Little Women for a new generation - of Alcott fans for sure. Chiefly cine-literate ones.
Gut Reaction: A brief adjustment to the time-structure, then building enjoyment - to laughter, teary moments and multi-layered satisfaction at the ending.
Memorable Moment: Jo sums it all up to Marmee.
Ed's Verdict: 9/10. Clever screen writing, but never at the expense of faithfulness, depth or emotion. Little Women is a great cinema experience - and the more you think about it, the better it gets.
Getting divorced with a kid is one of the hardest things to do. It's like a death without a body.
The Gist: Noah Baumbach wrote and directed Marriage Story, the melancholy tale of theatre director Charlie (Adam Driver) and his actor wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), as they negotiate the trauma of ending their once passionately close marriage. At the centre of the drama is the couple's eight-year-old son Henry, who travels with mom from the couple's New York home, when she shoots a TV pilot in Los Angeles, turning custody into a major issue. Mediation turns into the hiring of divorce lawyers, at which point the relatively cordial proceedings take a turn for the nasty. There's only so long the mutual sense of hurt can simmer, before it reaches boiling, with Henry caught in the middle.
The Juice: Baumbach has form dealing with marital dysfunction - in his 2005 film The Squid and the Whale Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney exchanged vicious barbs as their domestic harmony went horribly sour. Marriage Story is similarly tragi-comic, but demonstrates a greater sense of compassion in a screenplay that is frequently hilarious, occasionally devastating and never less than painfully real. Every character interaction is acutely observed, never better than in a scene of painful comic embarrassment when Nicole's family - who adore Charlie - are co-opted into helping serve the divorce papers.
A fine balance of sympathy is achieved throughout this Story, with both Johansson and Driver delivering awards-worthy turns that reek of buried emotional turmoil. (That's until they give vent to said turmoil in one of the year's most unforgettably fraught scenes.) The support is sturdy as well, with Laura Dern, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta all playing the scenes of legal wrangling to honed (and sometimes dryly comic) perfection. The precise and unfussy direction is there to compliment performances; the camera lingers on Johansson as she lets the details of her marriage spill to lawyer Dern, or on Driver as he deals with a supremely awkward 'observation' of time spent with his son. And in one telling legal-hearing scene both parties are framed as peripheral to the procedure that's been set in motion.
The Judgement: 8.5/10. The most obvious comparison here is Kramer vs. Kramer. Marriage Story, however, updates the premise by sustaining equal focus on both partners and by delving deep into the effect of the unfolding crisis on each. It'll cut close to the bone for a lot of viewers, but the excruciating aspects are eased by wit, wisdom and empathy - for characters whose only real crime is being fallibly human. With its broken heart on its sleeve, this is as good and as moving a drama as you'll see this year.
You don't want me following you into fire? Then don't run into fire.
Whether the song 'Let It Go' thrills you to your core or sends you fleeing with hands clamped resolutely to your ears, there's no denying that Disney's 2013 animated fantasy Frozen got something very right. There was a crystalline beauty to their adaptation of 'The Snow Queen', along with a batch of memorable characters (human and otherwise), that earwormy song and a classic fairytale structure. It even ended on a note of 'love conquers all', only the love in question - in a modern twist - was between sisters rather than romantic partners. Elsa and Anna's sibling bond conquered the global box office too, making the sequel a Jumanji kind of inevitable. Be thankful then that the creative team waited over half a decade to do it - when they had a 'Frozen-universe' story worth telling. Relax, parents of small children everywhere - it really is good.
Picking up a short time after the first film's conclusion, we find life in Arendelle moving along placidly. Kristoff is working up to a proposal of marriage to Anna, Olaf the sentient snowman is puzzling over the great questions of existence (not unlike Forky in Toy Story 4) and Elsa is adapting to quietly ruling her kingdom. Or trying to. For haunting voices are calling her on the night air and strange otherworldly rumblings are threatening Arendelle to its foundations. The answers lie, it seems, in an enchanted forest the sisters' father told them of in their childhood and in a historical wrong that needs to be righted. So once more the girls (with Olaf, Kristoff and Sven the reindeer as backup) must square up to life's responsibilities and venture back into the unknown.
There's lots I can say about Frozen II that you've already guessed. The characters are well-drawn (in more ways than one), the music has Broadway-standard credentials and the animation is consumately good throughout. This is the sequel to a legitimate cultural phenomenon and Disney's highest-grossing animation to date (at least in pure dollar terms), so it's not going to be anything less than technically masterful. What surprises is the nature of the choices made, both artistic and narrative.
The 'frozen fractals' of the first movie are in short supply, at least intially. It's all earthy autumnal colours and rose-purple tinged skies, hinting at the forthcoming winter and lit up by occasional blasts of Elsa's icy magic. The whole look of the film is restrained, beautifully so, even the pink flames of a cute fire salamander are ethereally pale rather than classic Disney garish. And then there are the moments when Queen's brand of arctic splendour comes rushing back - always glorious and at points bewitchingly abstract. Frame by frame this film is sheer visual rapture.
The story springs surprises of its own. Even less concerned than its predecessor with a conventional antagonist, Frozen II is all about digging deep into the magical lore of the kingdom and beyond. The characters' quest, while truly epic in scope, is less about battles with trollish villains than wrestling with the most powerful forces of nature. Its central conundrum is of how best to atone for a dreadful historic crime, with the repercussions threatening to engulf all our heroes - human, quadruped and snow-based magical life-form alike.
This is intricate stuff in terms of plot and theme and might make you wonder - in the way Martin Scorsese's Hugo did - at which generation the movie is really aimed. But children will be awed by how it looks, entertained by Olaf's slapstick antics and chatter (Josh Gad clearly has a blast voicing him) and made soppy by Kristoff and Sven's endearing double-act. And yes, they will love the determined, feisty sisters as much as before, no doubt fearing for them in moments of jeopardy.
As for the songs - they're sometimes moving, sometimes funny. Olaf's mid-forest meaning-of-life number had a sting that made me laugh out loud, while Kristoff delivers a Peter Cetera-style '80s power ballad that is damned hilarous throughout. Anna (Kristen Bell) croons a couple that are pretty, touching and in keeping with her down-to-earth character, while Elsa (Idina Menzel) delivers two ice-shattering belters to compensate for the fact that she's not doing 'Let It Go' this time around.
I may be as far from Frozen II's intended demographic as it's possible to be, but I'm also a sucker for a well-crafted movie, whatever the genre. Likewise I admire a sequel that retains the convictions of its original, which this one totally does - holding to the key theme of sisterhood, while expanding into those of community and cross-cultural understanding. The new story also deepens the first film's mysticism in the most ravishing way possible, while the dialogue and the lyrics remain sharp. All of which confirms what fans have hoped since the follow-up was announced - Frozen hasn't lost its sparkle.
Gut Reaction: The animation popped my eyes, Olaf made me giggle and Elsa's songs gave me - ahem - chills.
Memerable Moment: Olaf enacts all of Frozen I in sixty seconds.
Ed's Verdict: 8/10. If it doesn't have the dramatic impact of the first, this Frozen follow-up compensates with lustrous design, complex storytelling and heart. Any doubt that this film should have been made... let it go.
This will be the final word in the story of Skywalker.
And so we come to it - the final episodic Star Wars movie EVER... or at least until things have settled down. That may take a long, long time. 2015's The Force Awakens was largely embraced by the franchise fandom, but two years later The Last Jedi sliced opinion into two irreconsilible halves more effectively than Kylo Ren could have managed with his coolly impractical light-sabre. This time it fell to J J Abrams, writer-director of the trilogy-starter, to pacify the disgruntled, unite conflicting viewpoints, keep the studio executives happy and (most importantly of all) deliver a great film. Talk about being screwed before you begin...
Look, let's not get off on the wrong foot here. There's much to enjoy in The Rise of Skywalker and overall I had a good experience - possibly because I'm not a mega-invested long-time Star Wars fan. But is it the film to pull the trilogy together into a cohesive whole? I only wish I could answer yes...
Plotwise the movie begins with a massive, perplexing leap from what's gone before. A new-old threat has made itself known in the galaxy far-far-away - even while the First Order continues to assert its power - and the surviving members of the Resistance are on a mission to find a thing that will help them locate said threat. Meanwhile the eternally conflicted Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is seeking Rey (Daisy Ridley) either to kill her or turn her to the Dark Side. Planet-demonlishing death-rays are nearing completion, while an effort to swell the good guys' ranks seems to be going unheeded. Basically the nasty is about to hit the galactic fan, while our heroes flouder to respond. The much talked-about 'hope' seems in short supply and they're running on pure resolve.
Okay, let me deal with the problems first, all of them boiling down to narrative issues, most of which were built in by Day One of the Skywalker shoot. This entire trilogy turns out to have been planned with little regard as to where it was ultimately going. The Force Awakens was a joyous re-assertion of the franchise mythology, The Last Jedi (in my opinion) a wickedly entertaining subversion of that same mythos, leading the story off in an intriguing new direction. However a host of fans were incensed by the latter, bitching to the extent that the studio - I'm assuming - insisted on reversal tactics for the final film. Let's put the story back on a conventional track, they decided - re-introduce a classic Star Wars villain, reinstate the conventional lore and recoup the followers we lost last time around. Oh and let's throw in some nostalgic cameos (here's looking at you, Lando) that add nothing beyond naked fan service. That'll set things right. Yeah... or perhaps it'll serve to hash things up completely.
There are two lessons here that movie-makers at this level really should have learnt long since. The first is - have a plan. You know, one whereby individual writer-directors communicate sufficiently for their individual trilogy segments to mesh and where all the key players know, roughly speaking, what end-point they're working towards. Two - once you've struck a course, show the conviction to follow it through. Don't - please don't - pander to fans at the risk of narrative integrity. Decide on your story and then tell it, should the galaxy implode.
The producers of the new Star Wars trilogy abandoned both these rules with the result that The Rise of Skywalker spends way too much time re-setting the story and rushing its characters around the galactic chessboard, while it should be pausing to build on what's already been established. Central players from the previous film are sidelined (presumably due to poor fan response - grrrrrrrrr), while new ones are introduced but not properly developed. Meanwhile developments in certain character relations are hinted at like in previous films, but remain frustratingly unexplored by the end. Story-wise this is - in a way that its predecessors avoided - one cluttered and messy film.
All that said, there is much I love unreservedly about The Rise of Skywalker, to the extent that I'll still want to possess my own copy. The production design, so impressive in the previous two episodes, attains breathtaking heights of beauty here, enhanced by cinematography that's stayed uniformly sharp throughout the whole saga. It all looks so magnificent, the locations so solid and convincing (despite lavish use of CGI), that it's nothing short of a privilege to hang out there, more so with John Williams' evocative themes swelling around you. The cast play out their with similar conviction, whatever the deficiencies of the plotting. Finn and Poe (Oscar Isaac) have forged an enjoyable bromance and Chewie is never less than lovable, while the Rey/Kylo relationship is simply the best reason to watch the movie. The chemistry between these two frenemies sizzles like the dazzling red and blue of their light-sabres and the camera is besotted with them both. No joke - the scenes between this couple are the sexiest thing in cinema this year.
Add to that the droid action (I can never get enough of BB-8 barrelling around spacecraft and planet surfaces), the masterfully choreographed action and the touching way in which the late Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia is incorporated into the drama and there is a huge amount here that I will gladly dive back into for a second watch.
You know I'm even content with how the movie resolved its central character journeys, while the final shot is a moment of understated perfection. However all of that can't counter the main flaw - a lack of a unifying narrative vision across the three episodes, something which becomes painfully apparent in this final one. That'd be a shameful shortcoming under any film-making circumstances. But with hundreds of top-quality creatives feeling the Force and producing work nothing short of sublime, it's nigh on unforgivable. Frankly the Jedi and the Sith both deserved better.
Gut Reaction: Perplexed and even mildly bored, until the central character dynamic drew me in and the bravura visuals production values swept me away. The whole thing's so flipping gorgeous, I couldn't help but submit.
Memorable Moment: Rey and Kylo's blazing, water-logged showdown. Just damn.
Ed's Verdict: 7/10. Despite how damaged the underlying story structure is, this scores high for how formidably well-made it is in physical terms. Skywalker scales amazing heights of practical film-craft, even while its narrative crumbles.
No, no, no! I'm the old fat dude!
In pure dollar terms 2017's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was the biggest blockbuster surprise of the last decade. Part of the reason was its deft blending of comedy and adventure, but more was due to how imaginately it subverted the expectations of everyone who had seen the Robin Williams original. Whatever the cause, the film's outlandish level of success meant that this sequel was destined to exist - only question, would it be more than a cynical exercise in wringing cash from the built-in audience? I can happily report that with the original creative team on board, Jumanji: The Next Level stays original and creative. It's also a lot of fun.
High school is over for our Breakfast Clubby quartet - and while three of them have moved on emotionally and geographically, geeky Spencer is in a hometown rut. Secretly he longs to be video game character Dr. Smolder Braveheart all over again. Thus when his friends arrive home for Christmas break, they find that he has reconstructed the magical game they thought had been destroyed and vanished inside it. What can they do but follow him? However the damaged game is playing by different rules this time. When Spencer's ailing grandfather (Danny DeVito) and the friend with whom he fell out decades before (fellow-Danny Glover) get dragged into Jumanji as well, virtually no one ends up as the avatar they expected. Add to that their new quest - one that turns out to be fraught with even more peril than before.
The big achievement of The Next Level is that it takes all that made its 2017 predecessor so much fun - the video-game tropes, the crackling banter, the sharp visuals - and mixes things up enough to keep them fresh. With the bickering protagonists of Welcome to the Jungle now firmly united in friendship, it's inspired to have them teamed with a pair of grumpy old men, painfully trying to explain the rules of what's going on as the usual Jumanji madness breaks out all around. And while Karen Gillen's Martha gets to revisit her Amy Roundhouse character (a move which grounds the potentially confusing experience for the audience), Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black all get to play entertainingly against their original types.
This plot device is never less than entertaining, but works particularly well in Hart's case. While Black was the most consistently hilarious character in the Jungle, this time it's the diminuative star of The Upside and Night School who shines, his high-pitched motor-mouth shtick replaced with something very different. And just when that seam of comedy threatens to reach exhaustion, the screenplay stirs the body-swap plotline even more. What is truly impressive - and a credit to the more mature actors - is how easily you can follow the thread of the teens' character journeys through a variety of video game personas. In other words, you never lose track of who's who, however break-neck the pace of the narrative, and stay invested as a result.
The rebooted franchise should also be commended for keeping a tight focus on character interactions, no matter how furiously the action hurtles along. The joke-heavy dialogue never lets up - even when our heroic band are fending off a vicious monkey attack miles in the air - and an impressively high percentage of their gags raise a laugh. Visually the sequel is a step up from before, with Laurence of Arabia desert vistas and craggy snow-capped peaks providing respite from the traditional Jumanji jungle. Throw in some great support performances that I won't even spoil and you have as satisfying a family-friendly advanture as you're likely to watch this Christmas and most others.
There's a concensus among critics that Jumanji: The Next Level is a solid sequel, complimenting but not quite matching Welcome to the Jungle, due to the underlying concept no longer being fresh. Well maybe it's because I came to the Jungle two years late with the surprise already spoiled, but I actually preferred this new one. It made me laugh more, it thrilled me more and - in its sub-plot of two older characters reviewing their life choices - it even moved me a little bit more. The makers should probably quit while they're so far ahead, but from the end-credits that's not going to happen. If they do go for the trilogy (and there's around zero per cent chance that they won't) let's hope the writers have enough ideas in reserve to re-summon that Jumanji magic. This time around it was so worth it.
Gut Reaction: I laughed, loudly and a lot, including every damn time Hart opened his mouth. On a few occasions I even got properly enthralled.
Memorable Moment: The mandrill bridge attack. One of those occasions that properly enthralled me.
Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. A worthy companion piece to the first (new) Jumanji, The Next Level is a great comedy showcase for multiple talents and (occasional genital references aside) a terrific family night out. Pass the popcorn and enjoy the ride.
