Happily, Hamill gets a gratifying amount of screen time as Leia’s elusive twin, the disillusioned Luke Skywalker, looking in his oilskin coat like a lonely old Norwegian fisherman.Ĭliff hanger no-more: The second in the so-called Star Wars sequel trilogy, it follows directly on from 2015’s The Force Awakens She’s jolly pretty, and wields a light sabre wonderfully, but her dramatic range still stretches only from A to just beyond B.
If I had to find a spoonful of negativity to splash on such a cinematic feast, it would be that Ridley, as the space scavenger Rey, is outclassed in her scenes with Driver and the equally terrific Hamill. He’s the kind of tortured soul, tugged one way by conscience and another by impulse, who would grace any psychological thriller. Driver again makes a fantastic baddie, a worthy successor to Darth Vader, investing his character with proper depth. Yet there is little comedy from Snoke’s other instrument of evil, the emotionally conflicted Ren. Snoke has the dastardly but comically hapless General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) to do his dirty work for him, facilitating some cheap but welcome laughs. The Last Jedi skilfully continues the handover of the Star Wars baton to a younger generation. Han Solo is dead, killed by his and Leia’s son Kylo Ren (Driver), and the villainous First Order’s ineffably evil, incomparably ugly Supreme Leader Snoke (a mercifully unrecognisable Andy Serkis) is determined to finish off the noble Resistance, led by a resolute, but ageing and vulnerable Leia. There were moments towards the end when I felt like one of those poor Cubans listening to Fidel Castro at the height of his oratorical vigour
Tense: Stars Wars: The Last Jedi lasts fully two and a half hours.