Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

4/4

Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Alec Guinness, and the voice of James Earl Jones

Rated PG for Sci-Fi Action Violence

The fifth installment (or chronologically speaking in terms of release dates, the second) of George Lucas's beloved "Star Wars" saga is "The Empire Strikes Back."  It is also the most beloved and considered the best film in the series.  I don't know if I'd go that far (for me, Episode III packs a bigger punch), but it is an amazing movie.  It continues the grand saga that Lucas had begun to reveal and provides more depth and complexity to the characters that Lucas had introduced audiences to three years beforehand.  Despite the fact that Lucas neither wrote nor directed this installment.

The destruction of the Death Star by the Rebel Alliance was a huge hit to the Empire, but by no means was that a finishing blow.  The Empire regrouped and has been chasing the Rebels all over the galaxy.  The Rebels have set up base on the ice planet Hoth.  The characters' paths diverge from there, however.  Luke gets a vision from the late Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guinness) to go to the Dagobah system to receive Jedi training.  Meanwhile, Han Solo (Ford) and Leia (Fisher) are being pursued by the Empire, and end up in Cloud City on the planet Bespin.  And the culmination of these two separate adventures may spell doom for the entire galaxy.

Episode IV was a standard adventure yarn.  It had a beginning, middle and end, and the battle lines were clearly drawn.  Here, things get a little murky.  The Empire is still evil, and the Rebels are good guys, but the threat that Luke may turn to the Dark Side is very real.  Luke's past is delved into, which leads to one of the greatest twists in film history: that Luke's father is in fact Darth Vader.  Actually this twist was decided late in the film, and an anachronism is still left in (Leia kisses Luke to make Han jealous, although neither one of them knew that they were related).

The acting is just as good.  Mark Hamill played a starry-eyed idealist who was all light and innocence in the first one.  Here, he's a little more worldly and a little darker.  Hamill understands that the fight against the Empire has changed Luke, and the actor (who has done very little of note outside the three "Star Wars" movies) plays him with a little more anger and tension.  Carrie Fisher is still just as feisty, but her loving relationship with Luke earns her sympathy and her love/hate relationship with Han Solo leads to some hilarious moments.  Ford is also very good as Han, who is struggling with his feelings for Leia.  Anthony Daniels is hysterical as C-3PO, who is more or less in a constant panic, and his barbs with R2-D2 are also very funny.  James Earl Jones lends depth and viciousness to Darth Vader.  Vader has emerged as more than the epitome of evil that he was in the first installment.  Here, we can see his intelligence and his ruthlessness.

George Lucas ceded directorial control over to British filmmaker Irvin Kershner.  Kershner does what every good filmmaker should do in his position: keep the spirit of the previous film.  Many filmmakers have done that with to James Bond franchise, and Kershner does it here.  Quite frankly, it's really impossible to tell that it wasn't directed by Lucas.  Nor was it written by him.  Writer Leigh Brackett wrote a draft, but died before she could finish it.  Lucas was dissatisfied with it, so he had Lawrence Kasdan rewrite it, changing just about everything but following Lucas' story.  Brackett is credited because she fulfilled her contractual obligations.

One of the things that is nice about this movie is that it doesn't suffer the fate of many middle installments.  It exists on its own terms and can be viewed as a stand-alone film (although I don't understand why anyone would want to do that).  The "Star Wars" films are classics, and this one is no exception.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Desert Flower

2/4 Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson Rated R for Some Violent Content, A Scene of Sexuality and Language The problem with "Desert Flower" is not that Waris Dirie's story isn't suited for the cinematic treatment or that the actress playing her isn't acceptable.  The problem is that director Sherry Hormann doesn't do a good job of telling it.  This is a poorly focused film that can't decide what it wants to be about or what it wants to say. As is the case with many a true story, the life of Waris Dirie is too amazing to be made up by a Hollywood screenwriter.  This woman fled an arranged marriage as a child, spent years as a servant to a Somali diplomat in England, survived on the streets, and was discovered by a fashion photographer while working as a janitor.  Then she became a supermodel and UN Ambassador in the fight against female genital mutilation. Waris experienced a lot in her life.  Telling it all in a...
Read more

The Road

3.5/4 Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron Rated R for Some Violence, Disturbing Images and Language "The Road" has to be the most downbeat, depressing and cynical movie I've ever seen.  That's not meant as a criticism, but a fact.  This is a tough movie to get through, but not a chore.  Those who venture in will find their time well spent, albeit not in a necessarily pleasant way.  Then again, if a movie is based off a novel by Cormac McCarthy, "pleasant" isn't a word one would hope to be used to describe it. The film takes place after the world has ended.  How it happened is not explained because it doesn't matter.  But any hope of the Earth recovering from what happened has long since gone.  A man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) are travelling together, trying to "get to the coast."  There are few people left, although considering what many are doing with the goal of survival, that's a good thing...
Read more

My Left Foot

 2/4 Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, Alison Whelan Rated R (probably for Language and Brief Violence) "My Left Foot" feels like one of those movies designed to win Oscars and nothing else.  In fact, it did win two Oscars for the immortal Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker, but apart from their strong work, there's not much else to remember about this movie.  It's well-acted, but all in all it's pretty dull. Christy Brown (Day-Lewis) is getting recognized for his work in order to raise money for the disabled.  Despite being a talented artist and writer, Christy is not the ideal candidate for the job.  He's an alcoholic jerk who makes no secret of his lust for women nor is he above using his disability to manipulate people into doing what he wants.  Interspersed with his attempts to seduce a woman tasked with looking after him while he awaits his entrance are vignettes from his childhood.  Most notably how his mothe...
Read more