Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (Do We Need Another Prequel?)

SPOILER FREE

“This is nothin’. You should see that”

Did we need a Star Wars spin-off about the early years of Han Solo? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since the film was announced. Let’s disregard the problems behind the scenes. Let’s disregard Solo’s box office “failure” (let’s be honest, it will make a profit, won’t it? Disney have left it to die in a May slot, slotted between Deadpool 2 and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. But it will still make a profit). The bare fact is that Solo: A Star Wars Story needed to be something pretty darn special to justify its existence. Didn’t the Original Trilogy tell us all we needed to know about young Solo? This spin-off isn’t special, and doesn’t tell us much that we needed to know about young Solo!

Review: Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017) (This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think…)

“What do you know about the Force?”

It’s been five days since I watched The Last Jedi. Part of me wanted to love it. Part of me wanted to hate it. It may have received one of the most divisive reactions to a Star Wars movie ever. But my mind is still divided against itself over The Last Jedi. I’ll probably come up with a rating by the end of this review. But that could change after a second viewing. I reckon a second viewing might be necessary to absorb everything portrayed in The Last Jedi. It was bloated, poorly paced and plodding at times. Some character plot lines were questionable at best. The core story wasn’t very interesting at all. But The Last Jedi tried its best to shock us by throwing everything including the kitchen sink at us. And that’s why I still can’t make up my mind about it.

Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) (The Best Star Wars Prequel?)

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

“We call it the Death Star”

The latest instalment in the Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi, is due out at the end of this week. So it’s time I took a look back at the last Star Wars film…Rogue One: A Star Wars story! I watched it at the cinema, but didn’t write a review because I found the experience mediocre. A rewatch later and I still have the same feeling as I did before about it. It’s intermittently diverting enough to absorb you into its story. However, I couldn’t shake the bad feeling that I’d seen all of this before. I knew where the film was going and how it was going to end…and nothing distracted me from that. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story felt like a remix of the Star Wars films we’d seen before.

Review: Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) (The Best Prequel?)

(I thought I’d already post this review just before The Force Awakens came out…but I couldn’t find it in my blog history!)

“I sense a trap”

‘Revenge of the Sith’ is a film some consider to be the best Star Wars prequel. That’s not difficult. After ‘Attack of the Clones,’ anything would be an improvement. I saw ‘ROTS’ at the cinema a whopping three times! Yes, I was one of those people who loved it on first viewing (but less and less each subsequent time). Maybe it was the knowledge that this was (at the time) the last Star Wars film to be released (now that Disney have the licence, we will probably see a new Star Wars film out every week…). Maybe my expectations were so low, and my eagerness to appreciate the film so high, that I convinced myself I was watching a good film. After several rewatches later, however, I have come to my senses. Yes, it may be the best film of the prequel trilogy. There are some promising scenes. Lucas seems to try really hard to end his saga on a high note. However, it retains most of the flaws of the first two prequels, and creates a few of its own…

Review: Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) (Better Than The Prequels?)

(SPOILER-FREE!)

“This is a rescue!”

We all hoped that ‘Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens’ would not sink to the depths of the prequels. I can confidently say that it doesn’t. If I’d have written this review straight after seeing it, I probably would have agreed with most of the early critics: ‘TFA’ is a four or a five star film! It captures what ‘Star War’s is all about, something the prequels singularly failed to do (bar a few scenes here or there). It gave me similar feelings of exhilaration to when I first saw the original Star Wars trilogy, all the way back in 1997. However, after overcoming those heavy feelings of nostalgia, I can say that there are flaws that prevent ‘TFA’ from being a great film.

Review: Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) (A Long Time Ago…)

“We seem to be made to suffer”

How can I review a film that I’ve watched countless times since opening the ‘Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition’ on Christmas Day, 1997? I’d heard so much about it, but missed it until I asked for the trilogy as a Christmas present. At one point, I knew the entire script, the sound effects…every second of the film was ingrained in my brain! How can I repress those memories to produce an unbiased review? The answer: watch it with a Star Wars virgin…my fiancée! She had never seen the trilogy before, and blatantly refused to watch them. However, she caved, and a few nights ago, I showed her one of the films that defined my late childhood…