Disney, Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, writers and director J.J. Abrams dig Star Wars a sad and humble grave.
Starting with a bad title, ending with a causeless conclusion and leaving filler that climaxes too soon and accomplishes nothing of substance, the ninth episode of the saga drags, mugs, hams, flashes and limps to the end. What began as a fresh shot of idealism in the middle of a mythical movie series envisioned by George Lucas putters to an incoherently uninteresting ending with The Rise of Skywalker.
Abrams directs and Kennedy guides as Disney funds this mashup of mysticism and mainstreamed “social justice” pap. The problem’s not that Rey (Daisy Ridley) is a female protagonist with superpowers. The problem’s not even that the character is badly conceived, written and played, though, unfortunately, she is awful in every sense. The film’s flaw is fundamental; it exists to repeat an experience, not to dramatize a story, let alone a good story, let alone make the audience feel good and entertained, let alone provoke thought.
Diehards invested in 42 years of merchandising, including toys, discs and related memories, may be inclined to reject this view. I suspect, however, that they’ll be as fatigued as the boy who sat behind me. He started before the opening credits as a happy child and ended up drifting away in his father’s lap, bored, confused and, as far as I could tell, desperate to go home.
Rise of Skywalker blabs, flaps and flops.
Billy Dee Williams, an outstanding actor, reprising his role as a cad, best sums up the spirit of the final Star Wars movie of the central Lucas series; he can hardly work up an interest and looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than this galaxy far, far away. Surprises, plot points and effects aside, the acting is almost universally flat, bad and sleep-inducing with the lines to match. Only Adam Driver, again as the villainous son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, stands out in every appearance. The less said about the late Carrie Fisher, as in The Last Jedi, reanimated, inserted and manipulated here in the same role she originated in 1977, the better. Her character, too, is backdated to become a Jedi knight she never was.
Ridley as Rey is pained, again, shifting looks between angry and hard or between light and caught by some magical, inexplicable feeling. The series’ religious Force, made more explicit and repetitious this time, dominates her character, engulfing Finn (John Boyega), who instructs someone that causeless “feelings” are paramount.
It is important that the audience understand that nothing is at stake in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Rey may be in the middle of a battle, or a duel, or a mission with Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn, and, suddenly, she may wander, usually looking angry, intent or puzzled. Rey may stand in the middle of an open space, furrowing her brow and staring into a void. Or she may go off on her own into a storm, you never know and you never know why. This happens over and over.
This is the theme of what’s become of the George Lucas Star Wars; that one must go by “feelings”, not facts. That one must act on whim, never go by reason, and that good may or may not result but, in any case, the individual must subordinate the ego and rationality to faith, religion and whatever capricious “destiny” results. Time and again, each major character, even ghosts (Rise of Skywalker is loaded with ghosts), submits to the void.
For example, Poe, the closest to a voice of reason in the final trilogy, who was emasculated last time after a decent start in The Force Awakens, rises briefly in stature to regain his efficacious ability only to be reduced, really wiped, in the climactic battle. It’s not enough that he’s dead wrong (is this character right about anything?); Poe has to be deflated in being dead wrong and literally give up and renounce his earlier self-confidence. Only then is he “redeemed” by the universe or whatever’s believed to be outside of one’s self, like an Obama or McCain speech badly dramatized.
The Disney/Lucasfilm/Kathleen Kennedy left’s religion of irrationalism, i.e., feminism, multiculturalism, etc., trumps all with appallingly condescending plot points. Female minimizes male. Blacks pair with (and are saved by) blacks. Gays are gay only for an instant and only if they’re … female, of course. Females are omnipotent. Males are not; men are dolts. Humor almost always comes at the male’s expense.
I kept waiting for Yoda to have a cameo and announce that he’s transitioning. One major series character, who was once a candidate for the series’ hero, dismisses his entire life in two seconds with a line that he was wrong about nearly everything. Another male character, Finn, admits his incompetence at an important plot point; when asked what to do next during a military operation, he admits: “I have no idea [so] follow me.” This is intended as humor, though the boy behind me wasn’t laughing, and soon the child put several questions to his father, who told him to hush.
Finn’s line is telling. It shows that Star Wars inversion from 1977’s can-do Americanism to blank Nineties reboot and post-9/11 tribalism is complete. It falls to Finn, the flattest, blankest character, a former stormtrooper who the audience was once led to believe fell in love with the heroine, to pronounce the 42-year-old series’ edict, which looms over and dominates our culture: “[go by] instinct, feeling, the Force … I don’t know how [to think].”
Finn’s profession of ignorance stems from his fixation on cipher Rey, the ultimate whim-worshipper and magical mystic whose causeless actions invariably lead to mass death and destruction. I wish I could say as I have in previous series reviews that all of this is mitigated by enjoyable moments and effects. But almost everything is bad. Star destroyers appear in such volume as to be distracting and preposterous, even for a preachy, mystical soap opera disguised as a gussied up fantasy in outer space. Wildly undulating storm waves the size of a county go calm in an instant for no reason.
Frankly, the most entertaining moments involve the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), whose scenes and lines are pure cheese and crackers. They drip with melodrama to the point, with logic and reason the province here of the villains, that I was almost rooting for him and his Easter Island-like carvings, faceless band of Sith Lords and legions of assembled, cloaked believers.
It’s as if this section of Rise of Skywalker is a tribute to those B movies in which you find out that the whole town’s populated by worshippers of the devil, who then encircle and seek to sacrifice a screaming virgin until the handsome, dashing hero comes in to save her.
Today’s anti-sex “social justice” activists and makers of movies by commandment need not fear being “triggered”, however. This movie like its recent predecessors is celibate and sexless. Handsome, dashing heroes are, like Song of the South, smoking, sex, guns and egoism and other imagined Disney movie outrages and injustices, purged from Star Wars.
Rise of Skywalker (like Marvel’s movies) does not entertain. Apparently, it fails to entertain the boy behind me who, in two hours, went from happy anticipation to sad disappointment.
“For a monthly price of $6.99 or an annual rate of $69.99 in the U.S. (pricing varies outside U.S.), Disney+ offers viewers of all ages a compelling price-to-value proposition”, Disney’s press release announced this week. The streaming service, which promises “commercial-free viewing, up to four concurrent streams, and unlimited downloads with no upcharges,” debuts on November 12. The app claims to feature:
Unlimited downloads of shows and movies on the Disney+ app to watch offline later on up to 10 mobile or tablet devices; subscribers can watch on the go and without an internet connection
Multiple profiles: subscribers can set up to seven different profiles and choose an avatar tailored to a favorite Disney, Pixar, Marvel or Star Warscharacter, from over 200 available avatars
Concurrent streaming on up to four registered devices with no up-charges in multiple languages for movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and Disney’s newly acquired studio library from 20th Century Fox, which includes Fox’s National Geographic brand
But proceed with caution. For example, beware of Disney’s original programming, which includes several Avengers-related series, which cumulatively sound as enticing as another season of The Simpsons. The legendary studio’s also touting something that sounds designed for diversity and inclusion, which is a euphemism for sameness and exclusion of anything that diverges from the status quo, called Diary of a Female President. And coming soon is a slew of new Star Wars series, including 12 new episodes of an ongoing series from Kathleen Kennedy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the animated, Emmy® award-winning series which I’ve never seen (a movie of the same name was middling), streaming on Disney+ in February 2020.
In fact, Kennedy introduced a Disney fan expo audience to what’s being advertised as “the second Lucasfilm live-action series for Disney+, now in development,” based on the mediocre Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Besides this less-than-thrilling announcement, there’s a new Disney Lucasfilm series dubbed The Mandalorian, “set after the fall of the Empire”, supposedly tracing the trail of “a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy”. I could be wrong but the Star Wars content, which gets worse with each new release, looks flat and dull.
Now that the Burbank studio’s bought 20th Century Fox, and with its distinguished history, Disney ought to tout its vast backlog because the newest offerings, such as Dumbo and Aladdin, are either awful or mediocre. Is currently unlimited access to Disney’s and Fox’s archives worth paying $6.99 per month as an early price? The answer may depend on how many, if any, of the classics you already own and the quality of the studio’s original programming, which has a spotty recent track record at best. For the streaming service with the unfortunate name, which evokes Google’s failed attempt at social media, it’s buyer beware.
Disney’s 2019 version of Aladdin is a rehash of the 1992 animated original, which was an enjoyably light romantic musical adventure. This one, an extravagant affair loaded with distracting, screaming effects, is arguably worse or no better. It can’t seriously be called live action because the action by live actors, which is noticeably manipulated and distorted by computers or some sort of digital doctoring, is not exactly realistic.
For instance, an opening chase sequence and Bollywood style dancing show the title character (and animals and humans) in jerky, almost robotic, movements. These are not likely to have been created to be noticed as digitized effects. But effects are easily detectable. The sound, too, is blaring. Add hip hop by Will Smith (Concussion, Collateral Beauty) as the genie and, as a cinematic experience, it’s exhausting.
This might be fine if the story was interesting. With the classic tale’s Sword in the Stone type coming of age theme, Aladdin — despite an anti-Western smear campaign against the movie by an Islamic pressure group — is interesting as light fare (if strictly as light fare).
The leading character is fine, though as a skinny youngster he’s not completely convincing as the romantic leading male. The female love interest is updated with a predictably post-Me, Too subplot. Princess Jasmine now yearns to be an authoritarian ruler, though of course she presumably intends to be a benign ruler of people’s lives (as if this is possible). In any case, Jasmine comes off as disproportionately more mature than Aladdin. Again, as with Marvel-under-Disney’s Black Panther, “inclusion” excludes gays from the monarchy.
Whether this represents submission to Islamic or Middle Eastern pressure groups — Disney changed its 1992 movie script to appease Arab pressure group campaigns — is unknown but the movie’s a mashup of styles that’s so widely disparate that such omissions are glaring. When the picture’s a carefully contrived, kitchen sink mix of feminism and multiculturalism it’s hard not to notice what’s left out. The film’s only Western character is portrayed as an effeminate, white imbecile.
In case you’re wondering, the original’s Alan Menken music, with lyrics by Tim Rice and the late Howard Ashman, are all here. New music by Justin Paul and Benj Pasek (The Greatest Showman, Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land) is very good in service of the new subplot. Overall, everything gets tidily if superficially tied together. The monkey, the bird, the magic carpet — they’re all here — adding a framing device which blends an interracial romance. More subplotting about power lust and poverty comes in, gets short exposition and fades away without a second thought. The villain, Jafar, is sufficiently evil.
Aladdin’s smartest part, which pertains to the two leads being born into a kind of pre-conceived notion based on class, is reduced to a line in John August’s script. It is promptly abandoned.
Besides hip hop, rapping and loud, obnoxious effects, Aladdin’s most distracting aspect is its titular hero. The thin actor, Mena Massoud, is overgroomed. His look is distinctive — his acting skills are fine — so the perfectly curled long strands of black hair resembling a black Aladdin Disneyland character wig are just so. I felt like I was being transported to a Disney theme park a few times during the movie, as if I was watching a scheduled parade, show or “cast member” appearance. Such explicitly self-conscious filmmaking — the director is Guy Ritchie — costs Aladdin. The main character is so visually distracting that he takes the audience out of the movie.
Forgettable Aladdin is better than horrendous Dumbo. And, while Will Smith as the genie is minimized and plot resolution hinges on a technicality, Aladdin puts a new, if formulaic, rub on its appealing box office hit.
For a good time, skip this week’s remake of Walt Disney’s animated classic Dumbo and watch the 1941 original instead. It’s more concise, enjoyable and full of wonder.
The new version is awful. For full disclosure, this is probably one of the most anticipated movies this year by yours truly, both because I’m an admirer of classic Disney pictures, and occasionally enjoy the Burbank studio’s run of remakes. I also tend to find something good about movies directed by Burbank native Tim Burton, who directed Disney’s 2019 Dumbo.
Not this picture. Unlike his best movies, such as Big Fish, The Nightmare Before Christmas or Edward Scissorhands, 2019’s Dumbo lacks Mr. Burton’s stylized visual imprint. The nearly two-hour film, which goes from Florida to Missouri to a fantastical New York City theme park, is devoid of flourish. From the beginning, Dumbo is generic.
Taking place in 1919, most of the original plot points are included by reference only. Look instead for refashioned motifs, symbols and gestures. Do not look for the spirit of the baby elephant with big ears that masters how to fly. He’s been turned into a science experiment for a bland girl character that seems written from some sort of STEM feminist propaganda leaflet, stripped of all friendship with the entrepreneurial mouse and sanitized into a poster animal for PETA and other animal rights and intimidation-based pressure groups.
Seriously. The cast is miscast, though it’s always good to see Colin Farrell (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Alexander, Total Recall), the best actor in the film as a wounded war veteran. Danny De Vito (Other People’s Money) has never been worse. Michael Keaton (The Founder, Birdman), an outstanding actor, barely registers. Eva Green (The Golden Compass) gives one of the screen’s worst performances. The child actors as cast and directed are blank and would have Walt Disney turning over in his grave with their lifelessness. Unfortunately, they dominate the film, which replaces the original’s bullying with cartoonish white male villains with anti-capitalist overtones.
Scenes just happen without pretext, context or reason. Crowds magically show up overnight for circus attractions that were assembled with hardly any practice or training. Adam Arkin is wasted as a banker. Danny Elfman’s moody oohing and aahing musical accompaniment highlights Dumbo‘s deficiencies. The dialogue ranges from “we think your ears are great” passing for childlike wonder to “Hey! Get those kids!” This reminded of Disney’s hilariously atrocious Witch Mountain pictures of the 1970s. But Dumbo never gains any momentum to lose so I was never really invested.
I wanted Tim Burton’s movie to be his best. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this picture since last year. This is one of a string of disappointing movies from Hollywood’s biggest studio. But, with the most uninteresting children characters on screen in decades, this picture is Mr. Burton’s worst since his 2001 Planet of the Apes remake. Given Disney’s movies-by-generic-formula direction I’m not convinced it’s Tim Burton’s handiwork that’s the problem.
No black crows (which means no black feather), no real musicality (“Baby Mine” is reduced to next to nothing) and considerably less Dumbo on screen leaves this 21st century Dumbo as a joyless, politicized paste imposing miserable little doll-children onto what ought to be a fond fable about finding one’s way in the world. Oh, what Bob Iger’s let be done to Dumbo is a fiasco.
Disney’s new movie musical is a gorgeous sequel to its cherished film Mary Poppins. If you are one of those that loves that 1964 movie, you’re likely to love this movie, too. Neither as sugary as the original nor as bleak, it is, under Rob Marshall’s direction, more purposeful.
Mary Poppins Returns, starring Emily Blunt (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Sicario, The Girl on the Train, Into the Woods) in the title role, is often inviting and entertaining. If you can stand another Christmastime depiction of a sinister capitalist (Colin Firth, The King’s Speech) ala A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life, you will enjoy this song and dance film.
Music by Hairspray songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman shapes the movie. With Rob Marshall’s frequent cinematographer Dion Beebe (The Snowman, Into the Woods, Disney’s upcoming live action version of The Little Mermaid), the new Mary Poppins picture pops in every frame.
Like Robert Zemeckis, Rob Marshall (Into the Woods, Memoirs of a Geisha, Chicago) excels at making marvelously, visually arresting motion pictures. In particular, Marshall is able to set the musical to a proper and compelling plot progression. Thus, Marshall makes something of a thin tale (which he co-wrote with others), blending the cast of characters with charming tunes.
Be mindful of what you think of Mary Poppins, however. I don’t consider it one of Walt Disney’s best pictures. Others, such as Bambi, Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp and The Jungle Book, not to mention the forgotten So Dear to My Heart, are better. The sad, sappy qualities don’t age well.
If it wasn’t for Ben Whishaw (Paddington’s voice in Paddington 2 and Sonny in Suffragette) as Michael Banks and Blunt staying in step with the London nanny originated by Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins Returns would feel flat and lack vitality.
As it is, besides its grating anti-capitalism (the Banks sister played by Emily Mortimer is a labor activist), Mary Poppins Returns drags. Add another distracting appearance by overrated Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady, Mamma Mia!, Florence Foster Jenkins, Hope Springs, Into the Woods), who insists on singing in every other movie, and the film is practically puffy in every way. A lamplighter character played by Moana and Hamilton! composer Lin-Manuel Miranda could have easily been cut or reduced.
But Miranda’s laborer is part of the movie’s best dancing sequence. The lamplighters lead Poppins and the Banks children back from the horrid bank that’s repossessing their home. The street workers’ singing and dancing serves to align and seal the movie’s disparate themes, displayed with Impressionism, vibrant early 60s colors and animation and transitions.
Mary Poppins Returns is as traditional as the 54-year-old original and both are based on the P.L. Travers stories, so faith, poverty and altruism are treated as inherently virtuous. And Poppins’ line that thinking too much is bad for you fits this condescending narrative, so expect the joyful and childlike to be rooted in the 20th century’s lowest, most common slogans.
But there’s good casting of the three Banks children, wisdom in childlike wonder (with cameos by Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury) and the best line — when Mary Poppins deadpans after someone asks if she’s sure a bike trip with the kids is quite safe: “not in the slightest” — make Mary Poppins Returns a welcome diversion for child and adult alike.
I write fiction and non-fiction. Read my blog at left for informal posts on news, ideas and the culture. I am available for contracting, so if you're interested, please start here.
I welcome feedback. To let me know your thoughts, please feel free to contact me.
Starting with a bad title, ending with a causeless conclusion and leaving filler that climaxes too soon and accomplishes nothing of substance, the ninth episode of the saga drags, mugs, hams, flashes and limps to the end. What began as a fresh shot of idealism in the middle of a mythical movie series envisioned by George Lucas putters to an incoherently uninteresting ending with The Rise of Skywalker.
But proceed with caution. For example, beware of Disney’s original programming, which includes several 
For instance, an opening chase sequence and Bollywood style dancing show the title character (and animals and humans) in jerky, almost robotic, movements. These are not likely to have been created to be noticed as digitized effects. But effects are easily detectable. The sound, too, is blaring. Add hip hop by Will Smith (
The new version is awful. For full disclosure, this is probably one of the most anticipated movies this year by yours truly, both because I’m an admirer of classic Disney pictures, and occasionally enjoy the Burbank studio’s run of remakes. I also tend to find something good about movies directed by Burbank native Tim Burton, who directed Disney’s 2019 Dumbo.