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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

So here's the final part of the Skywalker saga. Or the third film in this trilogy. Or the ninth film in the Star Wars series. Or the eleventh film in the franchise. Let's be realistic - in the coming years there will be titles like 'Star Wars: The Yield of Lucre' or 'Star Wars: Hutt River Province' or 'Star Wars: The Something of Boris' (apologies to Adam & Joe). It's never going to finish and it may very well repeat the formula over and over until film becomes an obsolete medium. But people (me included) will still buy tickets. It's a cultural blind spot that no matter how bad these films get, folk will flock (even Attack of the Clones made north of half a billion USD).

In saying that, The Rise of Skywalker is a really fun film and it goes at a clip. J.J. Abrams had a look at what Rian Johnson did with The Last Jedi and mini-retconned most of it. In fairness, Johnson did pretty much the same after Abrams The Force Awakens so, even Steven? For the record, I really liked TFA and didn't much like TLJ for reasons mentioned in other entries. I do appreciate TLJ a bit more now, if only as a diversion between the two Abrams films - three in a row from him may have been too much. But allow me to start with the slight queries I had with TROS. One of my beefs comes about 30 seconds into the film. We're told on the traditional scroll that:

"The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, the threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE...."

Is this the best way in reintroduce the primary villain of the entire saga? Presumably, it happens between films but I'd have liked to have seen this pretty momentous event actually SHOWN, rather than TOLD as a piffling preamble. Surely this cock deserved a more dramatic entrance.

Another issue was the handling of certain characters and the amount of screen time they had. John Boyega has been sadly marginalised since he more or less stole the film in TFA. Here he gets to shout a lot, almost tell Rey something important (?) and almost get sweaty with another new character, Jannah, played by Naomi Ackie. She also has bugger all to do, though not as bugger all as Kelly Marie Tran's Rose. I miss the days when incidental characters like Max Rebo, Nien Nunb or Wedge Antilles could just show up once and not appear again or be killed off or surprise us all by popping up again in another film AND IT WAS ALL FINE. It seems this latest trilogy has tried to assign too much import to minor characters. I don't remember people wringing their hands that Bib Fortuna didn't get more lines (though in fairness, there was no Reddit back then, nor internet to host it).

There are also a couple of typically manipulative 'ejaculation points', one example being when Poe, at the nadir for the rebels, apologises to everyone before Lando (echoing Falcon from Avengers: Endgame) surprises him with pre-triumphant reinforcements. And the maguffin of finding a compass to get Rey to Exagol is no less transparent a device than the myriad of them in TLJ, though done without all the boredom.

Now to the gold. The pace of this film is staggering, especially in the first act. It matches TFA in this respect and it sticks to the formula of bags of action happening while the 'important' one goes off to do 'important' stuff. At least here, Poe and Finn have a little crack at Rey for not being with them in the tight spots. Speaking of these three, their platonic love/hate triangle was nicely played and Daisy Ridley has really grown into this role - she's one of the standout performers. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren is another. He's cracking in this, as he has been all trilogy. His transformation is fantastic and his show-stopping moment with &*@^%@^#!$*& was enough to turn me into a bag of weeping snot. One more thing to mention is the slight disappointment that Richard E. Grant as General Pryde didn't clench his fist and shout "Then the fucker will rue the day!" or "Don't threaten me with a dead fish." There's a Snatch Wars style mash-up going begging here. Oh, and spoiler alert, but Disney really missed a trick by not naming Ridley's character Velouria. Just imagine the soundtrack - "Velouria, her covering, travelling career. She can really move, oh, Palpatine." Thank you, yes, that's about all I've got.

So ultimately a solid, exciting ending to this trilogy. Hits all the right spots. Not quite as good as The Force Awakens but better than The Last Jedi. Probably sits around mid table in the canonical films. So until the next trilogy or stand-alone film, it's a fond Ruow (that's Shyriiwook for goodbye).

See also:

I'll always agitate for Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Bruce Robinson's peerless Withnail & I (1987).

POD TO FOLLOW???

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Revelation Film Festival 2026 - Wrap up

So that's Rev for another year. I made it to eight films and it was far from a stellar collection, but I think I made the wrong choice to start with - Bulk , when I could have waited an hour and watched Rosebush Pruning , which looked better in hindsight. Anyhoo, live and learn, I guess. Here are the films I saw in viewing order: Bulk ★ Boy, this was hard to get through. More pleased with itself than it had any right to be. Sam Riley and Alexandra Maria Lara are together again (after the vastly superior Control ) with Noah Taylor wafting around too. Writer/director Ben Wheatley has had a roller-coaster of a career so far, but this must be one of the nadirs. There are elements of Team America: World Police , Eraserhead and model work reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen, but the overripe dialogue, annoying performances, and sheer boredom all serve to give this a whiff of a pretentious student film (past experience verified). Avoid. Penny Lane is Dead ★ ★ ★ There is ...

The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan is one of the few active directors who can entice punters to the cinema (along with Denis Villeneuve), and they've come out in droves for his latest, a retelling of Homer's The Odyssey . Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who is co-opted to join his overlord, Agamemnon, in his attack on Troy. After near 10 years of siege, culminating in the Trojan Horse event, the silly bastard then decides to take the scenic route home, and gets plumb lost. What follows is a technically brilliant rendering of mythical nonsense made to feel real. Odysseus's mini-fleet of three ships and maybe 100 (?) men run into several hardships, notably the Cyclops; a small army of huge men called the Laestrygonians; the sorceress, Circe; and some salacious sea nymphs. These set pieces are fantastic, especially the Cyclops (played by TARS voice from Interstellar , Bill Irwin), and Circe's cottage, where she has a way with greedy menfolk. Samantha Morton is almost best...

The Last Resort

This preview for the Nordic Film Festival is a proper drama for grown-ups, directed and co-written by Maria Sødahl, that poses some curly questions. It's about a middle class Danish couple on holiday with their young daughters in the Canary Islands. Interestingly, the Danish title is Paradis , which carries a bit more irony than its English title. Mikkel (Esben Smed) and Louise (Danica Curcic) are a typically 'normal' couple from northern Europe, enjoying their island holiday when they run down a bloke while driving at night. He turns out to be Ahmed (Aziz Çapkurt), a refugee from Afghanistan, and his leg is pretty munted. Trying to do the right thing, they take him to hospital and leave him with some cash, and crucially, their resort room and phone numbers. This minor act of kindness, and no little guilt, sets in motion a slow building series of events that fucks with the couple's holiday, and relationship in a wider sense. The resurfacing of Ahmed is clearly signpost...

The Kidnapping of a President

This film, screening at the Nordic Film Festival , is a slightly slapstick telling of the attempted coup in Finland in 1930, where ex-President Kaarlo Ståhlberg and his wife were kidnapped and driven across the country by the right wing fascist Lapua Movement. It's tied together by a best on ground performance from the Finnish Glenn McGrath, Jussi Vatanen (it's astonishing how much this guy looks like Pidge - scroll to the bottom and decide yourself). He plays Eero Kuussaari, a colonel desperate for respect and promotion. This frustration and feeling of inferiority drives him to drunkenly order a young crew of right-wing activists to kidnap Stahlberg (Pertti Sveholm) from his country home. They don't bargain on Mrs. Stahlberg (Riitta Havukainen) insisting on joining them. Director Samuli Valkama has made a clever little historical comedy drama with current reverberations, considering Finland's place as a potential bulwark to Russia in Europe. The events of this film ta...

Supergirl

This new superhero flick from the DCU is an incel's nightmare. Following on from James Gunn's Superman of last year, Craig Gillespie takes the director's reins for this spin-off, Supergirl . Quick deviation - partway through, there's a clever aside about how Kara gets the 'girl' label, while her cousin Kal-El can use 'man'. Starting as it means to go on. Before we actually see the lead, we open with the motivating event of a family slaughter by the face-studded Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), sending young Ruthye (Eve Ridley) off on a revenge quest, which eventually drags in Kara Kor-El (Milly Alcock). Kara is on a week-long birthday bender, making sure to stay in red sun systems so that her powers don't work and the booze does. This is significant for the showstopping transformation yet to come on an interplanetary bus. Look, the film itself is fine, nothing new in the storyline structure (Andrew from The Curb notes that 'the ...

The Captive

Screening at the Spanish and Latin American Film Festival , Alejandro Amenabar's first film since 2019 is a mildly controversial take on the 5-year captivity of legendary Spanish author, Miguel de Cervantes. We begin the film as Cervantes is led into a dusty courtyard in Algiers, along with many other kidnappees. Before he can be sold as a slave, or sliced up for insubordination, he presents a letter from the Spanish court, signalling that perhaps it's better he be kept as a hostage for ransom. The film takes a bit of time to get rolling from here but when it does it settles into a clever mix of melodrama and weighty ideas. Cervantes, with his weak left arm acting like an acting crutch, slowly becomes the cheerleader of the prisoners, writing his stories in the air, only stopping when he temporarily runs light on material. The story takes a hurdle when the Bey, a high-ranking provincial governor (Alessandro Borghi) overhears the stories told in the courtyard and summons Cerv...

The Christophers

The title of the film refers to a series of paintings started by Julian Sklar in the 90s but left unfinished for reasons made clear later. Sklar, as played by Ian McKellen, is eccentric and irascible, and seems to be a blend of famous British painters, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. As Sklar is getting on in years, his grown children hatch a plan to have the paintings 'completed' for sale, with, or preferably without, their father's knowledge. For this undertaking they must enlist renowned art restorer (and dab hand forger), Lori Butler, an old acquaintance from art college. The premise is fine, but unfortunately, as created by Steven Soderbergh (director) and Ed Solomon (writer), it doesn't have any legs. Paradoxically, the best bits are probably also part of the reason it falters. McKellen is superb as the lovelorn painter, artistically blocked and emotionally bitter. His pithy, acerbic dialogue is great and he gives the performance full welly, but the actual storyli...

The Good Boy

This English/Polish co-production is not to be confused with Good Boy , a dog-based horror film, even though in most regions the definite article is removed - it seems only Australia and the UK have it as The Good Boy . To muddy the waters more, in some areas, including the US, Brazil and the Netherlands, it's called Heel , something you might say to a dog. Anyway, I'll call it THE Good Boy because that's how it's being sold here. It's directed by a Polish guy called Jan Komasa, who's done some features in Poland, and written by first time writer Bartek Bartosik, alongside slightly more established Naqqash Khalid. They've concocted a genre pic that flirts with horror, winks at black comedy and straight up propositions psychological dependency drama. At the beginning of the film, young scally Tommy (Anson Boon) is a hateable twat, acting 'the big I am' on a night out, drug-fucked and aggro with everyone, until he sets off on his own for more action. ...

The Rivals of Amziah King

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80s Movies and their Songs

So I was driving back from down south and we decided to fiddle with the radio. A generic FM station appeared and my Gen X ears knew most of the tracks, some ok, some dire. But the thing that prompted me to start this post was that a couple of the songs were clearly linked to films from the 1980s. I began thinking that, as much as it doesn't really happen now (or even much after the end of that decade, with some notable exceptions), this 'movie/song tie-in' was a huge pop culture phenomenon back then. As a massive time-wasting technique, I decided to do a bit of research and try to find the film and song pairing that was the most popular of the era. Box Office Mojo helped with the film's takings, but how to discern a song's popularity? I've had a look at the US Billboard charts and the UK top 40, so we'll see if this goes some way to covering it. Ultimately, the song that YOU heard on the radio all the time, or watched on MTV (often with the film's actor...

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