A late online arrival to the slew of trailers swimming in Sith‘s wake: Clones Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson evade Sean Bean (and look to Steve Buscemi for answers) in the new trailer for Michael Bay’s The Island. Bay-flicks tend to annoy me, but I could see this being useful as two hours of air conditioning at some point this summer.
Tag: Ewan MacGregor
Return of the Jedi.
Well, that was a happy surprise. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is by no means a perfect film. But, the reviews are right — this one’s miles above the other two prequels, and definitely can be considered in the same breath as Jedi. Sure, there’s a bad movie occasionally lingering in the shadows like a Sith, but for the most part this entry manages to capture some of that ole Star Wars feel, particularly in the opening rescue attempt and final hour. (And, unlike Menace and Clones, this one actually improves on a second viewing.)
So, what’s good? Well, while Ian McDiarmid gets in some choice scenery-chewing (particlarly once he goes Jedi) and Ewan McGregor steals the show with his canniest Alec Guinness impression yet, Hayden Christiansen is actually surprisingly decent this time around. The (mercifully brief) love scenes between he and a barely-used Natalie Portman are still stilted and sluggish, sure, but otherwise Christiansen acquits himself much better (It turns out the whiny-teenager schtick of Clones may have indeed been an acting choice.)
Whatsmore, barring a few hiccups here and there (Yoda really shouldn’t be used as Basil Exposition — It makes his syntax sound even more ridiculous), a lot of the “let’s take a meeting” scenes that so marred the first two prequels have a real dynamism to ’em in Sith. In fact, dare I say it, I actually found the court intrigue somewhat interesting this time — With Anakin caught between the machinations of Chancellor Palpatine and the distrust of the increasingly intransigent Jedi Order, there’re no tears shed over the taxation of trade routes or somesuch, and hardly a Jar Jar sighting to be had.
Our old embarrassment Mistah Binks may be sidelined this go around (as are a lot of the other random, useless characters of the first two prequels: I’m looking at you, Captain Typho), but Sith takes pleasure in harking back to old friends from the OT, among them an extended cameo by Chewbacca, a brief shot of Wayne “Scorpius” Pygram as Grand Moff Tarkin, and several scenes set in the Tantive IV. I was worried these types of nods would seem blatant and graceless, but for the most part they were handed quite well, and, indeed, turned out to be definite fanboy crowd-pleasers.
Yep, there’s a lot to like here…the opening shot, General Grievous, the Coruscant opera, all the amazing design flourishes by the ILM guys. In fact, even stuff that has no business working, like Ewan riding that goofy lizard all over Utapau, somehow ended up being kinda Tauntaun-like and un-prequel-ish.
But…that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. I’ve already mentioned the love scenes, and they’re pretty egregious. And at times, frankly, the film still just goes slack. Anakin and Obi-Wan’s final conversation before the Big Duel (the one that’s being quoted for its obvious Dubya references) should be a climactic moment in the saga, but it ends up seeming kinda stilted and poorly written. (“My allegiance is to the republic, and democracy…and, and cheese!”) Similarly the mano-a-mano between Yoda and the Emperor should seem one for the ages. But it’s never quite clear exactly why Yoda chooses to pull a Bishop-from-Aliens at the end, and lines like “Not if anything to say about it I have” just stop the film dead.
And, as a fanboy aside: While there are plenty of amazing and well-realized new worlds in Episode III, they all seem like they’re 30 seconds away from each other, with people popping back and forth between Coruscant and the Outer Rim in mid-sentence. What the heck happened to technology in the intervening two decades between III and IV? For some reason, Artoo loses tons of functionality, the Death Star takes 20 years to build, and the Millennium Falcon spends long stretches of time traveling in hyperspace, when back in the day Jedi apparently just snapped their fingers to get from place to place?
Also, why would Padme get kicked out of the Senate just for having a baby? And, for that matter, why is prenatal care so godawful in the Republic? Even notwithstanding the surprise-twins thing, that birthing robot with the scoop-hands looked like a torture droid.
But, obviously, these are nit-picks, and the fact that I’m picking nits rather than huge tumescent tumors from Sith is a mark of how much better this outing is than Clones. Ok, the end of the film drags just a bit, and the Obi-Wan/Anakin duel isn’t quite as viscerally exciting as the Maul melee of Menace, but for the most part I sat through Sith — both times! — with a big fanboy grin on my face. He definitely whiffed twice, but on his third swing, Lucas at least hit a triple here…it’s just too bad he didn’t recapture his mojo earlier. To paraphrase Palpatine, “Old fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand…“
III-dom and Evildoers.
Ok, here’s a little more: Two new Episode III TV spots. As you’ve probably heard by now, surprisingly the early non-fanboy word on Sith has been pretty good.
New from Hasbro!!
Three new Episode III TV spots aimed at kids show up online. If you find yourself with high hopes for this final installment, these should help recalibrate your expectations to accord with the other two prequels.
Deep-Sithed?
Uh oh…I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Some new Episode III footage (that doesn’t involve massive spoilers) shows up on the Offical Site in the form of two new TV spots. I’ve been letting my hopes rise for this final installment, but the dialogue and delivery in the “Tragedy” one in particular brought back some of that Clones fear and loathing.
Fanboy Cornucopia.
Thanks to ShoWest and otherwise, there’s been quite a bit of fanboy news to come down the pike in the past few days…
IIIrd times the charm?
Fool me once, I’m the fool. Fool me twice, I’m the fool who follows him. Still, I have to admit, this muddy, Peruvian Kramervision version of the new Episode III trailer — which officially premieres tonight on Fox during The O.C — looks pretty darn good. After the bunt that was A Phantom Menace and the travesty that was Attack of the Clones, there’s no reason to expect anything at all from Revenge of the Sith. But…I sense something, a presence I’ve not felt since… Update: Multiple mirrors here. Update 2: It’s now officially up here.
Heir to the Empire.
In case you couldn’t find it for some reason last week, the Episode III trailer is now officially available. And, if you’re looking for more SW news, Lucasfilm has also released the first film image of General Grievous, a.k.a. the new and goofily named Big Bad that was supposed to be voiced by Gary Oldman.
Life after Shrek.
If The Incredibles doesn’t satisfy your itch for CGI-animation this fall, it looks like there’s much more to come. First, Ewan MacGregor goes all Threepio in Robots (also with Halle Berry and Robin Williams), while Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer, Chris Rock (and, surprisingly, Ali G) speak for the animals in Madagascar. I’m not really feeling either of these, to be honest. Madagascar in particular looks like a cutscene from Monkey Island.
Gasping for Air.
Well, having seen Big Fish the other night, I can safely say it’s better than 2001’s Planet of the Apes, and I enjoyed it more than 1999’s Sleepy Hollow. Still, I expected more from this most recent outing by Tim Burton. You’d think Burton would be the perfect guy to construct a tale of fantastical, overgrown whoppers, but half the time I was wondering, “Where’s the beef?”
It’s not the cast’s fault, really. Ewan McGregor is charming as ever in the lead (even if he and Jude Law seem to be in a dead heat as to which son of the Isles can strike the goofiest Southern accent this Christmas), Albert Finney is fine, Billy Crudup does what he can in a thankless role, and most if not all of the supporting players are solid.
But the writing…I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know how close it adheres to the original stories. But I thought the film was hit-or-miss and, well, episodic. Some of the fish tales, like Ed Bloom’s mission to Korea or his tear through his small town, are pretty funny and enjoyable. Others, like his sojourn in Spectre, go on for far too long. And others, like the secret in Danny DeVito’s trailer, never really get off the ground and seem throwaway.
Of course, the larger problem here is the saccharine nature of the whole project, which is particularly surprising given Burton’s normal talent for subversiveness. He’s always been good at creating dark, edgy, temperamental worlds (Beetlejuice, Nightmare before Christmas, Batmans 1&2), but somehow this sickly-sweet, frothy, straightforward story turned Tim Burton into Chris Columbus. Sure, the denouement of the film is moving in its own way, but only because Burton hits you over the head with hospital bed tearfulness and graveside eulogizing…I’m surprised he didn’t kill a puppy while he was at it.
In sum, the movie seems to be missing that imaginative spark I once expected from Burton. What could have been an imaginative Ed Wood-like fusion of the mainstream and the perverse ended up coming across as a rather bland and staid studio project (As Buck Henry might put it, “On Golden Pond meets O Brother Where Art Thou.”) The thing about Big Fish is, I didn’t dislike it in the end. I just ended up feeling rather ambivalent about it. Hopefully, Burton will bring more of his trademark minor-key mischievousness to the table in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
