Reviews

Obi-Wan Kenobi

I first entered the realm of Star Wars in 1977, when I saw a film called Star Wars. It's now episode 4 and retitled "Episode IV - a New Hope". Anyway - one of the main characters was one Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was a Jedi knight (played by Sir Alec Guinness, very convincingly I thought). Of course part of being convinced was that back then nobody knew what a Jedi knight was (least of all, one suspects, Sir Alec) so I suppose he could well have ruined the genre if he had played it slightly more differently. However, what we got was an elderly gentleman who was surprisingly nimble for his age and was very adept at waving a light sabre about to good effect. As well feeling the force and having powers of telekinesis and mind control. The perfect grandpa really.

Over the course of the other five episodes in what became the Star Wars collection, we saw the demise and the development of Obi-Wan, and learn his role in the development of Anakin Skywalker from Jedi apprentice to seriously deadly and constantly grumpy Darth Vader.

This new (currently six episode) series shows us how things developed from Episode III, when Anakin, increasingly under the control of the evil Emperor, is near fatally injured in a fight with Obi-Wan and tantalisingly shown to be restored as Darth Vader, to Episode IV.

Essentially, the Empire is trying to eradicate the Jedis and has a crack team of inquisitors whizzing around the universe trying to kill all those who have the force (youngsters included). Meanwhile Obi-Wan is living a life of a normal guy trying to put his Jedi past behind him, spending his days carving up steaks from a huge whale like creature.

In parallel to this, the young Princess Lea and Luke Skywalker are being reared , with Obi-Wan having some connection with the latter.

So - how does it all go? Well, happily it is not all fights and explosions - there are several characters introduced and their story is allowed to develop, so there is always an element detached from the inevitability of the Kenobi/Vader show down. We know there must be one and we know they both survive it (else episodes IV,V and VI would need rewriting) so the question is not what happens but how.

Vader himself seems to be at the peak of his powers, and indeed his ability to fracture the ground around him and prevent a space craft from talking off by using the force, does make you wonder why he bothers with all this light sabre stuff at all. I suppose he enjoys it. Freudians would argue he is compensating for his sexual inadequacy. Whatever - it does present a logical jar, and yes I know this is science fiction but good science fiction should always work within its own prescribed axioms. There are similar scenes - typically when storm troopers all line up to be killed by Obi-Wan instead of simultaneously rushing him from all directions. Again - I know - its science fiction!

Just one more negative point - the bit at the end where Qui-Gon Jinn appears is just cheesy and not needed.

But, but, but I hear you ask. Is it any good?. Yes. Yes. Yes. It rolls along nicely, and there is some nice dialogue and interesting characters. I watched it in two sittings (I was knitting a scarf at the time -still not finished it if you are interested) and was just happy to immerse myself in the magic that is Star Wars.

I found it very hard to sit through all this film. I felt no real empathy for any of the characters - except the seamstresses, but their role was secondary to whatever it might be that was going on. As the film developed it seemed pretty apparent to me that Woodcock was highly neurotic and possibly autistic. No laughing matter, and my progress through this film was marred by my fellow audience members laughing at his behaviour and outbursts. Having mused on this film for a while now, I still find it simply empty of any real interest for me. Not one I will watch again.

I enjoyed this film in the sense that it held my attention throughout. The acting was good but not award winning in my view. It could have been better if it had delved a little deeper into the basic issues - the freedom of the press and whether governments are right to tell lies in some instances. These were never really broached and the set up from the start is press good, government bad. Well things are a lot more nuanced than that. Press freedom was touched on when a supreme court judge asked whether the press would have been right to have published D Day plans before D Day; but the whole thing was disposed of in about ten seconds.

We all know or could find out what the end result was here - and although the film gives us some insight to the personal decisions involved it does not provoke any real discussion of the issues involved.

This movie has a slow start - in fact after the first hour we decided to take a break and come back to it. In the opening hour we meet most of the eventual main protagonists, but it takes some time and I found the character of Henry not quite believable - a man dressed in a smart suit, who marries an intelligent woman and lives in a nice house - who decides to try his hand at farming in Mississippi. Just seemed to be a strange thing to do, because the motivation was not clear. In this half we clearly see the main themes - the repugnant racism of the USA in that period, the limited chances for educated and intelligent women to do anything other than get married and breed and the grinding existence of being a farmer in Mississippi.

In the second half the pace picks up largely due to the interaction of the two returning war veterans - one black, one white. Both have had terrible wartime experiences and are suffering from them. The white man resorts to alcohol and the black man becomes withdrawn. Of course the racism still applies even to war veterans and when the local KKK take exception to our black war veterans he pays the price.

The film's resolution is optimistic, perhaps too much so but then much of life does not end in disaster.

No new themes explored here but overall a story well told - especially in the second hour.

We did struggle with some of the mumbled dialogue.

Began promisingly but tailed off rapidly. There are themes to be explored here - the fact that the large proportion of rape complaints do not result in a prosecution, successful or not, suggests that something very amiss is happening. These themes deserve better than this story-line which by episode three seems to be a question of what will the erstwhile accused get away with now.

Distracting sub plots and twists appear to be a contrivance to fill the air time. The scene in episode 3 when the erstwhile accused promptly asks the informing female detective for a drink is risible.

Won't bother with the remaining episodes.

A pleasant enough watch but no where near as good a film as the PR hype would have. The songs are okay - but I did not leave the cinema humming with any one of them stuck in my head and the dance routines are again - okay. If the leads could really sing and dance more could have been made of this okay material. But the fact is while the voices are on pitch and in rhythm and the steps are all in the right place and time, neither of the performances infused any excitement.Contrast their dancing with the opening ensemble dance and song - danced by dancers. I did not feel there was much chemistry between the characters. In summary this was not the Hollywood musical reborn, rather an adequate homage to the genre.

Hard to empathise with any of the characters here - after a 15 minutes I was asking myself did I really care what happens next.

The plot is full of holes - a glaring example being how did the agent hide the memory stick in the bust? He seemed to just place it loosely in a hollow part of the base. And indeed why would secret agents carry on their person a memory stick full of compromising details? There are many more - if you like your Sherlock logical don't bother with this. It will drive you nuts.

Of course the writers et al can carry the story where so ever they wish but they will not carry me with them. Its a pity really - a modern day Sherlock could provide so many opportunities for situations provided by today's connected world yet still be logical and believable.The current story arc is neither of these.

Poorly scripted film, with no intention (or in any event achievement) of character development. The result - I just did not care what happened to who.

An example - Dr S is a top notch surgeon who must have achieved top notchedness by amongst other things assessing risks. So - said Dr decides to drive a car at silly speeds, in silly weather, in a silly way and then decides it would be cool to forget the driving and take a phone call; and look at a medical image.

Another example - Dr S gets a right kicking in Nepal from some serious heavies. I mean this is going to severely damage you kicking. Barely a scratch.

And guys - there are 7 cervical vertebrae. You will not have a C7/8 injury C7/T1 sure.

The FX are standard stuff and better done in Inception.

Save your money.

This is a film of two parts; the story of Sully and his crew and the story of the NTSB investigation of the incident.

The first part is dealt with well; we get a good picture of the life of air crew - living in hotels away from home and being involved in the myriad of tasks and issues that the travelling public never get to know about. The characterisations are believable and involving.

The second part is not dealt with well at all. The film presents a gross caricature of the NTSB investigators as being self satisfied bureaucrats who have already decided what occurred and who is to blame - that is Sully. This is not how it works, in this and most other investigations.

The reason for this is obvious - to create a villainous counterpoint to the heroic flight crew. But the whole thing is so one dimensional. I almost laughed when towards the end one of the investigators starts gushing admiration for Sully at a public hearing.

There was no need to do this - a more interesting and involving story would have been to portray the challenges felt by the NTSB team. A heavy responsibility to get to an account of what happened and why and to make a judgement about cause and contributory factors. Perhaps portray a back story of an investigation which went wrong with significant consequences.

But hey ho - why let facts spoil a good story?