Reviews

Star Wars Roue One. Warning, this review contains spoilers.

It would seem that Disney are looking to release a new Star Wars film every Christmas - maybe alternating between the main storyline and standalone films. Personally, a new Star Wars film every year is fine with me.

I guess the story of obtaining the Death Star plans is a pretty obvious story to tell, but I hope in future that the standalone movies aren't tied quite so closely into the main storyline - the opening scene of A New Hope would be the next scene following the closing scene of Rogue One. From a continuity point of view that's fine, but it does remove almost all the suspense from the story. And Star Wars is a vast universe - there are plenty of stories to be told.

Because we know that no one is getting out alive, it does make for a darker film than any in the original trilogy - darker even than Empire Strikes Back. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it's certainly possible to tell a dark, character driven story and do it well. However, this isn't a character driven story, it's an action film. But hey, this is Star Wars, so that's hardly surprising :)

They could have chosen to make a Cold War style spy thriller, but that doesn't give enough opportunity for dogfighting between X-Wings and TIE fighters, so they have made a war movie instead. In one scene it looks like the Rebel fighters have raided a surplus shop for American GI helmets, and they could easily be a squad of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos in the landing barge approaching the Normandy beaches.

Now, this might sound like I didn't really enjoy it, but that's not the case at all, I had a great time. Yes, it's an out and out action war film, but it's still Star Wars and it's still fun. The dogfighting scenes and the space battles in general are well done and we all like the space battles in Star Wars :) And the digital work for Tarkin and Leia is very good.

It's a fast-paced action film and we all know the ending, but it's done with Star Wars style and it works. But if Disney is going to tell a different Star Wars story every 2nd year, they are going to have to explore new territory.

I didn't mind Olympus Has Fallen - the plot was a bit weak but it was OK. This movie, however, has so many plot holes that it is impossible to get into the story.

A terrorist attack on London during the PM's funeral. Well, OK, that could happen. However, this film expects us to accept that one person, admittedly highly placed in Scotland Yard or MI5 - it's not really clear which, is able to get terrorists into the Palace Guard and replace about half of the London police detailed to provide security for the funeral, and gain sufficient control of the CCTV network so that instead of shutting it down, control is transferred to the terrorists so that they can do what they want with it. He is also able to intercept and decode American military communications, and organise a bunch of Delta Force uniforms at a moment's notice. And he knows where the MI6 safe houses are, something I'm pretty sure that neither Scotland Yard or MI5 actually know. There are hundreds of terrorists in London during this attack, and the British security and military forces seem completely unable to respond in any timely fashion. And all of this was set up without any Western security agencies having any idea what was about to go down.

And then, of course, the hero is an American Secret Service agent. I understand that they are highly trained, especially the Presidential Protection Branch, but no way are they the equal of the British SAS in counter-terrorism and hostage rescue operations. But of course this is one of those American films that shows that no one else in the rest of the world is competent except Americans. Oh, and terrorists - they are hela competent in this film and manage to kill the Canadian, German, French and Japanese heads of state - and possibly several others.

Good points - lots of explosions and some fun car chase scenes, but there is no way I can accept the basic premise of the movie.

I'm certain there must be some senior managers at Warner Bros who look at the success of the Marvel movies and wonder why they can't match it. And so they should - in Batman and Superman, DC have characters with more worldwide brand recognition than anyone in the Marvel Universe, including Spiderman. Part of the reason is that they don't seem to work at it - they don't seem to have anyone who is overseeing the whole franchise and guiding its direction. They do with the DC Universe TV shows, and they are doing a great job of universe building, but that is apparently a completely separate continuity.

This isn't a complete failure - it is better than Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel, but there is still a lot wrong with it. Wonder Woman is great, and should have featured more prominently in the film - I assume she will be a major player in the Justice League movies. Lex Luthor wasn't bad, but channelled the Joker a bit too much at times. Henry Cavill is much better as Superman than he was in Man of Steel.

The film is way too long - it could have been 45 mins shorter and still told the story. The first hour and a half meanders and drops in and out of dream sequences without warning. And there are many plot points that don't make sense. Batman wants to kill Superman because he is too powerful and can just kill people if he feels like it, yet Batman kills dozens of people during the movie without any regrets. As other reviewers have pointed out, Lex gives Superman an hour to kill Batman or Martha Kent will die - that is more than enough time for Superman to scour both Metropolis and Gothan with his X-Ray vision to find where she is being held.

Superman is supposed to be super-intelligent as well as his other powers, yet it never occurred to him to give the kryptonite spear to the other super-powered person there - Wonder Woman? And it didn't occur to Wonder Woman to toss Superman's body back into space where it could get the full effect of solar radiation? After all, he recovered from a nuclear explosion as soon as he was exposed to sunlight.

And finally, the death of Clark Kent. It's not going to be hard to explain Superman coming back from the dead, and in the comics Clark was buried under rubble and presumed dead, so his resurrection was explainable. But in this film, Clark's body is on display and he has a very public funeral. I'm not sure how they will plausibly bring Clark back for the Justice League movie.

I think the show has had a solid start, and I am enjoying that it has a traditional superhero feel to it, like Flash does. However, I can see some potential problems ahead, largely caused by the insistence of DC (or WB, whoever made the decision) to insist on complete separation of their movie and TV stories. I get that Supergirl is trying to become a hero without bothering her cousin all the time, and that's a good thing. But rogue Kryptonians (and I expect there will be more than one that have come out of the Phantom Zone)? That is exactly the type of scenario that Superman would end up getting involved in, so for him not to be involved is going to stretch credibility - especially as he is being mentioned so often. Knowing that it's most unlikely that Superman will be able to guest star in the season finale (but maybe I'm wrong about that) I would have thought that there are plenty of other credible threats that the show-runners could have gone with that aren't going to need Superman. And, as an aside, when did Jimmy Olsen learn Superman's secret identity?