Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

 Blu-ray, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025) film

Long, bloated, comfortable stunt-mush was what I expected, and that's pretty much what I got, they aren't going to change the formula at this stage and at least by 'M:I4' they'd settled into a repetitive rut that was enjoyable enough, but not very different film after film. This one bucks the trend in some ways: yes, he still has long hair this time, it's even commented on, and the gang's all here (with one exception), there's gadgetry and stuntery, but it's a lot less wisecracking, there's a much more serious tone. I appreciated that, but where was the thrill and excitement of those early entries in what became such a long-running series. It chugs along like a behemoth as if it's got the weight of the seven previous films dragging it down, but it's not like it's crucial to have seen them - even the previous film of which this is a direct sequel is summed up at the start, as you'd expect for newcomers, and while it's fun to see the series tie in to some of what came before, like the film as a whole, it's rather heavy-handed. I was relieved they didn't try and make every film and villain lead to this moment, although there was some of that with the Rabbit's Foot, or the 'Anti-God' device, somehow connected to the Entity (maybe - I didn't quite catch all the details), and Jim Phelps' son, Jim Phelps, showing up (I've watched every episode of the series from the 60s and 70s in recent years, but it took them revealing police detective, or whatever he was, 'Dan Briggs' to be Phelps, Jr., for me to remember Briggs was the name of the original IMF leader!). It was nice in some ways to see clips from the other films, but I dreaded the retroactive turn into some major plot of interconnectivity that would push even the bounds of this series' believability! But it didn't.

The other thing that gave me pause early on was this cult of the Entity that was given a quasi-Christian feel with the adherents talking about Noah and the Ark and the flood wiping everyone out, but again, fortunately that side of things got about as much development and depth as most plot points (though someone does mention Noah again later, saying something about he must have wondered what it was all for - destroying the wickedness of the time and restarting, but fortunately, if anyone knew their Bible they'd know a second worldwide flood was promised never to happen, sealed with the sign of the rainbow when the atmosphere of the planet was changed forever), and it all settled down into a reasonably inoffensive trudge. What we're all waiting for, and it seems the film is, too, is the Big Stunt, the one Tom Cruise gets to do for real. I first thought it might just be the vehicle rolling over earlier in the underground car chase, but that was too small fry to be 'it' and then I remembered the Blu-ray case and its image of an upside-down biplane, so I knew what was coming, and it was almost worth seeing the film for, but my advice for the curious but uninvested would be to skip straight to that and bypass all the needless wild goose chase - a goose chase makes it sound more exciting than it was! It really was a stodgy mass of grind up to the big moment, and I sometimes found it hard to fathom characters' motivations. I suppose Gabriel, the big villain, whom we never learned any more about, simply wanted to control the entire planet and remake it in his own image, but he wasn't the most interesting opponent (if not the worst we've seen, either - that award still retained by the old guy in 'M:I4' who... pretty much wanted to do the same thing).

The big early 'shock' was Luther Sloan, the loyal computer whizz who's been in every film to lesser or greater extent since the beginning, the only one to be alongside Ethan all the way across this thirty year series, is killed, and setting the style, it's in a bit of a needless, pointless way as if merely to up the jeopardy, but I can imagine the actor didn't fancy running around at his age any more. His role was largely taken over by Benji (to the extent this supposed 'Q Branch'-style boffin is first involved in an actual fight, albeit one that ends with a bookcase on top of him, and later given team leader status when Ethan isn't sure he's going to make it back, which is patently ridiculous!). All the way through I was expecting Luther's demise to be a blind and really he'll show up at the end, alive and well, 'surprise!' It was purely due to the moment of death not being shown on screen. I was almost as equally surprised that Rebecca Ferguson didn't return as I'd thought it had been confirmed that she wasn't really dead in the last film and she'd be a part of this one somewhere, so right to the last scene I was expecting her to appear. I wasn't surprised they didn't kill off Ethan, ever since they almost did at the end of 'M:I3' and then Jeremy Renner seemed to be coached to be the action man to take his place, and then wasn't, Hunt's been certain to survive, though I'm at a loss where he got both a parachute and a backup, since it seemed like, as Gabriel said, there's only one, and he's got it. I expected Ethan to leap out after the villain's dead body, free-fall down to where he was dropping and recover the parachute, but no, although having seen the behind-the-scenes extras on the disc I was impressed Cruise did an actual drop with a burning parachute himself. Insane!

The real star of the show was William Donloe, the surprising breakout character that began the series as a hapless victim of Hunt's necessary deeds, a comical character only really there for amusement at his baffled gormlessness - I knew he'd be coming back, but was expecting a minor cameo, so it was nice that he got a proper happy ending to his story, one I kept expecting to go badly (at least twice it seemed he was about to die - in the fire at his house and then with the bomb in the tunnel), but it definitely seemed they wanted to redeem this guy from the Purgatory he'd been exiled to in the first film, and they gave him an understanding wife (very understanding, apparently, since she never even batted an eyelid at the fact their home of thirty years had been burned down - unless William never got around to telling her that bit since she was off on dogsled adventure when that happened...), and a happy, fulfilled life, which again, I kept expecting to end since he is an expendable character, but he gets to be the hero not once, but twice! Delightful, and redresses the balance of the past in a neat little bow. Who'd have thought he'd end up being part of the IMF team Ethan assembles, haphazardly as it is, joining Benji (whom we just can't seem to shake from the series!), and Paris, Degas and Grace from the previous film. I especially enjoyed having characters return, particularly Paris and Briggs: the former gets to continue her redemption as former 'Mayday'-like bad-gal, the latter revealed as Phelps' son whom Ethan has to impress by succeeding at the end. Disappointed no one else from the old films showed up, other than Angela Bassett as the President (!), and Kitridge there to cause trouble again, but considering this is supposed to be the final film (dependent on Paramount's need for dollars, I suspect), it would have been nice to have assembled more characters from past escapades.

No one else on the team dies so they could easily continue the series, but as far as I know this was meant to be the last, at least until they reboot it or do something different with it in the same continuity. But then that could be a marketing ploy - I almost went to see it in the cinema for sentimental reasons, even though the first one in the series I saw 'live' was 'M:I2' and the last was 'M:I5,' so I haven't been enamoured enough with the direction of the last four to make the effort and I was glad I didn't: it was fine as it was, but it's far too 'fate of the world'-level to really care, when you go that far it's too far beyond the personal and so you get confusing plot points like the President has to decide whether to blow up an American city for some reason (which seemed ripped right out of 'The Dark Knight' and its two ships with a button to blow up the other on each). I don't know, to prove they won't use their arsenal against Russia and China, maybe? For such a momentous part of the plot, it didn't come across very clearly. In reality, on realising their Cold War enemy no longer had the means to defend itself the other two countries would immediately demand the US capitulate to any and all demands, but the whole set up was so plotty: the Entity is going to blow up the world, but only after sealing itself in a vault, but that's also when it'll be at its most vulnerable and they can trap it. But Gabriel wants to control it... And everyone's second-guessing what they're doing because it could all be an elaborate ruse by the artificial intelligence to get them to comply... I can imagine a far better film full of paranoia and only the true friends sticking together can pull victory through, and anyone could be someone they're not - even in the older films they had the face masks, but now the Entity can digitally recreate anyone, but that never got explored.

Plotty, that's just the word for it. Maybe they were trying to squeeze in too much because a popcorn thriller doesn't need to be almost three hours long, it's supposed to move deftly and efficiently, not trundle and bump along like a jalopy. The characters have never been developed enough for it to be an enjoyable experience merely to be in their presence, and as much as I like most of them, it was quite hard work in the first two-thirds of the film. There wasn't even that much to note or nitpick because the story was progressing so glacially. It became more of a man on his own mission, so there's not a lot of interplay or split-second teamwork. So what else to say? It showed that it's time to put the series to bed, Cruise can't hide his ageing any more, not that I mind seeing people older than me still repeating their greatest hits, and I seeing how they accomplished some of the plane stunts only adds to their glory, but as an entertainment experience it's far too weighed down. They try to throw in some positive messages about working together, and only by trusting each other can we defeat entities that are out to divide us, but it's all very simplistic and shallow. Would I really choose to wade through this and the last few films if I was after something good to watch? Probably not, they've become more of a mere accompaniment to life, continuing something that's been around these last four decades and is familiar and comfortable, but nothing more than that, where when I was younger I was blown away by the excitement, ideas and execution.

Part of the fault must lie with Director Christopher McQuarrie who I take it is someone malleable for Cruise to collaborate with, but I feel a director needs their own definitive vision (for that matter, why doesn't Cruise simply take on the full reins of directing himself?), and for the first two-and-a-half they had that with well-established action directors giving each film in the series its own very unique style and approach. Once that formula misfired with the fourth in the series, they settled on McQuarrie for these last four instead of branching out and having a James Cameron, a George Lucas, or a Spielberg, a Nolan, whoever, but someone that brings something visually entirely different. McQuarrie's fine, but I liked the idea of each film having its own strict identity. Having seen the entire TV series in the years since, however, I do understand that all the stories start to blur together and if you keep trying to top the stakes of the previous one you get, well, 'Fast & Furious.' I assume it's all about money and Cruise control, because the music was another area that doesn't stand out at all and I discovered the two composers are people I've never even heard of before so it seems they're trying to go cheaper to keep the profits high. Not to say all these people don't need to break out and find success, and maybe that's the reason (I assume), no one's particularly excited to make an 'M:I' film since it's been around so long and is just more of the same.

One thing about this film in particular is that it's no longer escapist, they're trying to hit on current themes, supposedly to hit the 'zeitgeist,' but what was great about the older films was you didn't have to think about modern problems, it was just expert, cunning precision plotting and action. Granted, I'm now older and harder to impress, I've seen it all before in this and other films, and I suppose that's why these things tend to be aimed at teens or twenty-somethings, because they don't have either the life experience or film-watching experience to be as unimpressed (though I did enjoy the references back to 8-inch floppy disks, the kind used by the Commodore 64 in the 80s - although I'm not sure it made sense for the data to be on such an old medium in the late-90s...). I didn't have many actual nitpicks for the film because it didn't seem all that detail-oriented, although I did baulk at the President of the US directly contacting Ethan until we later find out it's Bassett's character who obviously has history with him. I did find myself surprised he doesn't seem to have the same aversion to killing that he used to - I know when he ordered 'zero body count' in the first film it was because they were breaking into the CIA, but he's generally been quite a moral hero regarding such things, only killing when necessary, but here he violently goes after the goons that were threatening Grace and himself when all that was required was to knock them unconscious. At least we didn't see it all, happening off-camera in a semi-humorous way with the violence portrayed in shock on Grace's face. In fact this was one of the more restrained films in the series, especially considering it's the most recent one and films tend to be increasingly graphic, always have to use their quotient of one really nasty swearword, etc, but there was very little bad language and the violence wasn't extreme, so I appreciated that side of their decision-making.

Hunt/Cruise loves to run, so there's always got to be scenes of him pounding through streets or whatever, but it does make you wonder why he didn't simply borrow a car, hot-wire it and be on his way? I also did not buy Luther's reassuring words about being right where he wanted to be, born to be there, etc: what, strapped to a bomb that's about to go off? For all the series' reliance on gadgets and intelligence, they're beaten by a metal gate? Come on! Hunt would have found a bulldozer and smashed through the wall to save his friend. Occasionally there's a spot of realism to appreciate, like when Donloe's Inuit wife whacks a Russian soldier with a shovel and he merely looks at her! But then shortly after that is when you see Benji in a fight, which stretches credibility... It's hard to sum up a series I first loved and has been going for thirty long years, even though I wasn't there right from the beginning. I'm glad it exists, and to be honest, wouldn't be shocked it keeps going with a ninth and a tenth instalment if Cruise's appetite for stunts entices him back, but you can't keep putting your body on the line year after year in your 60s, so maybe he has retired for good. I can imagine a limited TV series being a suitable alternative with Cruise either absent or the boss giving out the orders, but at the same time that just doesn't seem his style. Where next for the IMF? I don't know, but let's have some serious editing next time, it really doesn't need to be as long as 'The Fellowship of The Ring'!

**

The Quick and The Dead

 TV, The Quick and The Dead (1995) film

The golden rule with Westerns is don't watch them post-1960s, but to my detriment I broke that rule with this film. Since Gene Hackman's death earlier in the year they've been showing a lot of his films and I'm often open to seeing what he's done, even if it is a Western made during the 90s. But they may as well have called it 'The Dull and The Nasty' since there aren't any positive characters and very little redemption. I will say I liked the theme that came through with Hackman's character, the big bad boss of the town, claiming he keeps order - no law, just order, so a kind of totalitarian control as he sees fit. And at the end, Sharon Stone's character tosses her Father's Marshal badge to Russell Crowe's priest with the injunction that now the town has law, so there was something there thematically, but it was only a sliver in the grand scheme. The trouble is there's no good role model character, and that's one reason why I don't like what the genre became: it's all relative, there may be avenging angels, and I'm sure some of Clint Eastwood's characters could be called heroic (Bronco Billy!), but for the most part it's about lecherous, leering types or vengeance-driven vigilantes, from those films I've seen, a grotesquerie of the toothy unclean shoved in your face, often apparently meant in a humorous way.

Take the nasty old lech who preys on the young girl, who must be only twelve or thirteen, maybe fourteen at best, grooming her to the point he has his way with her later in the film. I can see this is held in disgust by Stone's character and becomes added motivation for her to kill, but it has an inhumanly comedic angle to it at times as if we're meant to find it funny rather than disturbing. The same with many of the other members of this kill or be killed competition that have descended on this outpost town to win a suitcase full of money. I'm not sure what the object of it all was, maybe Wells Fargo put up the money hoping as many varmints in the area would kill each other off and they'd have an easier time sending their coaches through, but motivation isn't the film's strong point - the main one is Stone's revenge on Hackman for malevolently forcing her child self to kill her Father when he 'allows' her to try and shoot down the rope holding his neck in a noose, and being a child untrained in guns can't help but kill him. This is obviously what has led her to become an expert gunman (gun-woman?), and adds more reason to why she was so horrified at seeing Crowe strung up, able to shoot the rope and save his neck. But what became of her after her Father's death, she's obviously grown up full of hatred, bent on destroying Hackman, so not only did he waste her Father's life, but hers too, not a very optimistic place for the film to come from or go.

There's very little to like about her character, I assume she wanted to simply do a kind of female Eastwood who comes and goes with the wind, exacting her form of justice and disappearing again. The film could have taken a more memorable direction towards the end when she and Crowe, allies against Hackman, are forced into a duel to the death and she loses - if she really had died it might have had more of an impact to show that revenge leads to destruction for the person trying to carry it out, but I suspected it was all a trick, and so it proved in typical Hollywood fashion (complete with the town blasting into explosions all around, since it's believed a big explosion at the end of a film impresses the audience and makes it more profitable - that kind of template thinking that makes a film fit to a mould rather than be artistic in its own right). They could even have had the pair turn on Hackman's men and prevent them from enforcing what are changeable rules anyway, an alternative to the binary 'one dies, one lives' plot. Crowe is supposed to be a sympathetic character, the closest we have to a real hero in that he was once partners in crime with Hackman, but has since eschewed violence after he killed a priest and now believes he can never find redemption and get to Heaven, a false notion since even the worst sin can be forgiven if admitted to God and asked for forgiveness, so maybe he wasn't an actual priest as he doesn't seem to know even basic Biblical teaching.

He isn't really a hero since he isn't able to control himself and does kill when he has no other option - it's made to look in his first duel as if it was all instinct rather than choice, and that he's bewildered about what he's done, but it just serves to make him look weak and unable to stick to his principals - more realistic perhaps, but hardly inspiring, and when most of the characters behave like cartoon characters it doesn't really fit. We later see he's able to shoot two of Hackman's goons at once, on opposite rooftops, without aiming, so he and Stone could easily have dealt with them instead of going through with their duel, which didn't add to the believability! He's also unable to control himself when Stone drapes herself all over him since tomorrow they die, so again, if he is meant to be a priest he really doesn't know what he stands for, and lets it happen. I was excited to see Woody Strode's name in the opening credits, and Kevin Conway - the former was in many a Western of the past, my favourite role of his in 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' and I can see why they'd want to tie into the past like that - it shows even back then nostalgia was a factor in film decisions, but he only gets one line and maybe a couple of seconds of screen time, so that was disappointing. And Conway, whom I know as Emperor Kahless in 'TNG,' I never recognised out of his Klingon makeup, so that came to nothing, too!

What it comes down to is a bloodthirsty desire on the filmmakers to show violence and display the nastiness of human nature, the very opposite of what I saw in Westerns of the past which emphasised the battle to overcome such nature or to step in and deal with injustice (which does happen to a certain extent, I suppose) - whether that's realistic or not isn't the point, these are films after all, not reality, we're telling stories to entertain and hopefully come away refreshed and happy, not to wallow in ugliness and destruction. Director Sam Raimi was certainly capable of depicting the highest heroism since he went on to do the 'Spider-Man' trilogy in the following decade, but this film was far from a heroic effort. I imagine it was done on the cheap - even if they built an entire frontier town so they could blow it up, it's not going to be all that expensive, and no doubt the bulk of the budget went on the star names. And it worked: I saw Hackman's name and against better judgement gave it a go, only for it to follow the usual pattern of the 'modern' (1994+?), take on the genre. There's always a chance they can create a successful entry, I like 'Dances With Wolves' and 'The Last of The Mohicans,' a couple more Western-leaning productions of the early 90s, although they could just as easily be considered historical adventures. Perhaps it was the simple morality tales that filmmakers of more recent decades turned their nose up at? If so it was their loss and I'll stick to the traditional greats of the Western genre, for all the novelty of seeing Russell Crowe (whom I didn't even realise was acting as early as that), and Gene Hackman acting together on film.

*

Stargate Director's Cut

 DVD, Stargate Director's Cut (1994/2001) film

I hadn't seen the original version of this film so I don't know how different the Director's Cut is, whether there's much new material or what was changed, but it's a fair old length for what is a relatively slight story: they summon Dr. Daniel Jackson and Colonel Jack 'O'Neil' (one 'L'), go to the planet (which I don't even recall them calling Abydos!), Ra turns up, hangs around for a bit, then there's a modest fight against a couple of Death Gliders, and it's home for tea and crumpets. Except for Daniel who stays behind married to Sha'uri. I had the feeling several of the characters crossed over to the series, 'Stargate SG-1,' and were played by the same people, but I think in the end it was only Erick Avari as Kasuf, the almost Moses-like (holding up his staff!), leader of this tribe, and Skaara, the teen lad who O'Neil takes a liking to (and introduces to smoking!), bringing out the Father in him who's been damaged. You have Kawalsky and Sha'uri (both different spellings in the series), and Catherine Langford, who all crop up by different actors. But it didn't matter, you find yourself drawn into the spectacle which has a beating heart at its centre with the two main characters both on a crossroads in life. It's more obvious with O'Neil, unable to move on from the accidental death of his son, which is why he goes on a suicide mission, but Daniel, too, has reached a difficult point in his life where he's laughed out of lectures for his bizarre theories and can't even afford his rent any more, and the important part of the story is that both he and Jack find a new source of drive and direction, and that's what keeps this working despite the special effects of its time or small scope.

It's hard to believe this is over thirty years old now - I never saw it at the cinema, although a family member did, and it was never really on my radar. Considering its age the effects actually do look pretty good and it's told on a cinematic scale that lends the smallness of that story a much broader impression. That's without even investigating the potential of the Stargate itself - they only use it once (twice if you count the team returning to Earth at the very end), so it's really just a mechanism for getting them to the adventure, though you can see why the TV series and its spinoffs had so much to play with: while so much of the classic iconography and lore of the franchise is clearly visible (pyramid starships; sarcophagus to restore life; staff weapons; hand device for discombobulating a victim's brain; the opening crawl across Ra's face mask that the series would use as its opening titles for a while; the base under the mountain with its concrete and circular corridors; the 'gate room with overlooking windows...), there was also so much left unsaid, unexplained or unexplored. And I really like how they leave it. It's not exactly a clear setup for a sequel, it's just a high to go out on (even though in reality it's just a swarm of allies taking down two enemy soldiers!), and leaves it so they could have done anything next: maybe O'Neil didn't get home after all but was diverted away to some other planet, or perhaps Daniel had an adventure on Abydos or desperately had to return to Earth to convey new information about a threat. The options were open and the series ran with them.

I'd never thought about it before, but Jackson and 'Jack's son' was a link between the characters: maybe even Daniel's surname was a harsh reminder of what O'Neil had lost? Right from the start you have that scientists versus military tension that served the series so long and so well, and James Spader's performance especially is so strong, and actually only makes you appreciate Michael Shanks' taking on the character for 'SG-1' even more, since he got the mannerisms, speech patterns and general affable curiosity of the guy down so well. O'Neil and O'Neill are another matter. It's not that I dislike Kurt Russell's performance here, but he's so very different to Richard Dean Anderson, by design as the latter wanted his own take. I think there's even a joke somewhere in the TV series about another O'Neill with one 'L' in his name, so it's a little hazy whether this is supposed to be the same man who'd go on to be in the series. Not that it matters a great deal (or, for that matter that 'Anubis' is apparently one of the goons working for Ra since we know how dangerous the villain of the same name was in 'SG-1'!), but they don't exist in the same postcode when it comes to military characters, even though they have the same name and backstory. More distracting is actually the little plot holes that seem obvious now after the series explored every aspect of the 'gate. The biggest one is why didn't Earth keep dialling this alien planet every hour or so, that way they wouldn't have to worry whether Daniel could get them back or not? In the film you wouldn't think of it, you just assume there's a reason, but it stuck out to me.

Ra's entourage of half-naked children was a little worrying, but then this being a 'PG' it was at least explained in an innocent way that they're there to provide him with protection - presumably these are all children from the planet so the slaves would never harm their own children if they ever did get their hands on a weapon. Ra was a bit creepy, androgynous and youthful despite being thousands of years old, though I did find it interesting we learn he's actually an alien being that took over the human body. No mention of symbionts, but you see an alien face so we can take it that the original host body was also alien which I hadn't really thought of before. The other big nitpick I have is to wonder why Ra hung around for so long before attempting to send the bomb back down the Stargate to Earth - or were they just guessing that's what he was planning? He puts it by the 'gate, but then seems more interested in lounging around his palace or playing boardgames with the littl'uns rather than getting on with the annihilation, so I didn't understand his reticence there. One thing I liked was how we see O'Neil isn't there because he has a death wish. Yes, he's happy to die, but he's only going to do it as fulfilment of his mission - for example, when he tells Daniel to stand down as he can see they're outgunned and still has his orders, whereas a man who simply wanted to embrace death would have taken any opportunity to put himself in harm's way. It shows he's a principled man and a good soldier that his personal anguish isn't what truly motivates him.

The sets were good, the desert scenes suitably epic. I think I'd have liked a little more back on Earth, things whizz through that end of the story, while it isn't quite as strong in the later stages until you get to the upbeat finale. Catherine and the other experts would have been interesting characters to explore a bit more, but I can see if they did go along on the mission that would give Daniel more support and we wouldn't see him made a fool of because others would be there to bolster his side (I noted he somehow found his glasses as you see he's lost them in the scene where the beast of burden takes him on an unscheduled ride!). The theme wasn't quite as definitive, too, although I do love David Arnold's work, I just think they created a more memorable version as the series' main theme. I found the film surprisingly emotional, especially in the beginning as you're seeing these character meet for the first time, knowing how many adventures they'll go on in the future and it doesn't matter how many times you've seen the Stargate before, seeing what were state of the art effects at the time (I still remember the trailer on TV), and through the eyes of a first time viewer, is still somehow special. And after witnessing the franchise's lowest point not so long ago ('Stargate Origins: Catherine'), it was a relief to get back to something that had the strength of what made it work so well in the first place! There's been talk of a remake, but it would be a shame to undermine so many years of collected history across this film, the TV series' and subsequent films, but at the same time it did work having the same characters yet different to the ones I now know so well from 'SG-1,' so maybe it could work?

***

765874 - Unification

 download, 765874 - Unification (2024) film

Whatever it was I just watched, it had more power than anything Trek has done in the last fifteen years! But I don't now what I just watched - was this a proof of concept for a CGI Kirk and Spock? A top of the range expensive fan film? A vanity project for Shatner? I really have no idea, I just saw the news story on TrekMovie.com and thought it looked interesting. The only real disappointment is that it isn't a genuine Trek production! And maybe the fact it gets a little too fan-fiction in bringing back these various characters (including a surprise one-episode wonder from 'DSC' in Yor, the time travelling Starfleet officer who I always thought looked like an Yridian). It's also clear that this is 'fake' in the way that characters don't quite move one hundred percent realistically, and the shots from a distance have an unreality about them. It also suggests they can't yet have these CG recreations speak as no one says anything, not even a croaked, "Jim..." But as a proof of concept it was amazing to see James T. Kirk, and in three different stages of his life. Not only that, but to bring back Robin Curtis as Saavik was amazing, although I didn't understand who the hooded Vulcan with her was meant to be (her son?). I thought at first it was meant to be Spock and I was slightly put off by his emotional demeanour (typical of modern depictions of Vulcans, it has to be said!), and that he didn't actually look like Spock. But now I'm not so sure as Kirk ends the short with a visit to the bedside of the presumably dying Spock, again presumably in the Kelvin Timeline.

It was simply magnificent: touching, with a grandeur and majestic quality befitting of bringing back two legends one last time. I know 'Picard' Season 3 gave us the additional canon that Kirk's body had been retrieved from Veridian III, and there did seem some connection to that here when 'Yeoman Colt' (how is she alive and still young? So many questions...), is shown with modern Starfleet displays like that in 'Picard,' but the mechanics of it all and getting us to this point didn't seem to matter as it had that mystical, heavenly impression sometimes seen in 'TOS' films like 'Star Trek III' and 'Star Trek V.' I was very impressed, although at the same time, as much as I'd love this to have been part of a new Trek film, I also don't like the idea of artificial recreations (or really any recreations, recasting included), to continue their story - I feel they should be left to lie in peace, especially Kirk and Spock, who have both died in Trek. But I can't argue with the quality on display here, even Michael Giacchino's music, which I don't always appreciate, was suitably sensitive rather than over the top bombast, and this was a triumph! I'm not sure what the title refers to, I assumed it was a future Stardate, and obviously the Unification is that between two old friends separated by death, and about to be separated again. Beautiful.

*****

Stargate Origins: Catherine

 Download, Stargate Origins: Catherine (2018) film

Curiosity is what brought me to this, and that's what they were banking on, because as a film it was pretty poor. It lacked scope and scale, seemed pretty cheap in a TV film kind of way, much of the acting was amateurish, characters unsympathetic and it was long, so long. So sad that this is what a once great franchise came to - it's not the first, not by a long shot ('Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' 'Dr. Who,' in fact any long running sci-fi seems to fall at last), but at least others have at least made an effort when it came time to attempt a comeback. This seemed rather halfhearted as if it was merely bait with which to catch the unwary. If I'm recalling correctly it was originally released in parts like a miniseries online. Or was it something to do with an MGM 'Stargate' streaming channel as the one piece of new 'Stargate' to entice the fans to a one-stop shop? Not being that aware of the production origins I don't know quite how this came to be or why they thought it was a good idea. All I knew about it beforehand was that it featured Connor Trinneer a stalwart of both 'Enterprise' and 'Stargate Atlantis,' it was obviously about the origins of the Stargate, and Catherine Langford, a character whom I believe began in the film, was a friend of Daniel Jackson, and progressed to 'SG-1.' I was expecting Ernest to be involved, her man who went missing when he stepped through the Stargate and never returned (and whom SG-1 found as an old man all those years later), so I was slightly confused by Captain Beal.

What I actually got was an awkward, jumbled, occasionally stilted attempt at making an adventure through the 'gate before they were ever supposed to have had one, no mean feat. Even though I don't think these writers were anything to do with the wider 'Stargate' franchise (why would you not bring back those responsible for all the successful spinoff series'?), and in fact it felt more connected to the original film than anything else, I will give them credit that they did manage to make it all work in the end in continuity terms. If the last few minutes had been what the whole film consisted of then it could have been quite good, but instead much of it was a drag, waiting for something to happen, the pace leadenly feeding it out, beat by boring beat, unable to disguise its humble means while trying to suggest the scale of the original film. I'm not sufficiently well versed in the origins to be able to say for certain this or that should happen, though I was pretty sure they hadn't been able to operate the 'gate other than when Ernest went through, but they did make it a prequel story that fit: Aset, the consort of Ra (who's apparently gone off planet for a while), is keen on revolution against him and sees this SS Officer, Brucke, as a potential source of an army to use in an uprising, or that's the implication I got. When she's foiled she wipes the minds of Professor Paul Langford and his daughter, Catherine, plus Kasuf, sending them all back to where they should be with a subconscious directive to return with a team of people to overthrow Ra, cunningly setting up the film to occur all those years later (this is 1938, ten years after discovering the Stargate).

Ra turns up and punishes her disobedience. I didn't quite remember the stuff about the Harsesis, a baby, though I'm sure that was part of the story in 'SG-1'... There's also talk of Naquadah, the material that has properties of great power which would later power the 'gate, though it's not very clear and if you didn't know 'Stargate' I think that would've been lost on you as they don't explain how it would help Brucke. Otherwise there's a little classic alien technology - you get the power glove or whatever it was called that allowed Goa'uld (a name never spoken), to knock people about or wipe their minds, then there was the return of the staff weapon, most famously Teal'c's favourite bit of kit, now with a nasty curving blade on the other end, wielded by Aset's single bodyguard Serqet. You get Ring Transporters, you get a long shot of Ra's pyramid starship and you get Ra at the end, but it's a lot of poor scenes between unlikeable characters most of the time: Catherine is the worst offender, this obnoxious, violent, argumentative, unbalanced slip of a girl, nothing like the interesting character we'd known before (though I'll admit I don't remember how she'd been portrayed as her younger self). She's nothing like a 1930s woman, really no different from some modern superwoman that can ridiculously deal with anything. But she has to have her wet and weedy love interest, Captain Beal, to tag along and make her look a bit tougher, plus they had to have some 'hilarious' japes and banter, which was almost universally terrible. Finishing out the trio of main characters is the comedy Egyptian, Wasif.

Other characters include Trinneer's Professor who doesn't really get much to do other than be slapped down by evil Nazi Capitan Brucke, who typically foolishly sees the possibility of becoming more powerful than Hitler himself. At least Langford is able to use his wits to some degree when he translates what he wants to say between Brucke and Aset, since he's the only one that can speak ancient Egyptian. There are a few other characters here and there, but all are forgettable and it was quite impressive they could make not one character shine in an almost two hour film! Bizarrely, the film, which was pretty much a family friendly affair all the way through, with only some mild swearwords and the odd thumpy fight scene, suddenly goes into adult territory with male kissing, an extreme swearword uttered out of the blue by Kasuf and shown as a subtitle, and a bloody death for Brucke! I don't know where all that came from, but it certainly wasn't appropriate to the tone of the film, which had been (at least attempting), a light, comedic adventure. It wasn't funny (other than a line Wasif had when Catherine asks him why he never said he could understand the language, and he mistakes her meaning that he never told them he was Egyptian, and said it seemed obvious!), it was quite a trudge.

I was fortunate that it cost me absolutely nothing as I had a voucher to use on iTunes, and since the film was never released on DVD (I can understand why now!), this was my only way to access it. Maybe I should have just rented it because I can't imagine life ever being long enough for me to want to watch it again! They wanted to have an adventure before they were supposed to have been able to have an adventure, and they tied it all up pretty neatly, Captain Beal missing (killed by Serqet before he can get through the 'gate), the others with amnesia assumed to have come from tampering with the Stargate, Ra's revolution is tamped down and the seeds are laid for it to arise upon humans returning to Abydos (though again, it's never named). I couldn't avoid seeing the bad rating it had been awarded on iTunes, but I hoped it would be better than that perception of it. In fact it was exactly as bad as feared and if this is to be the last entry in this universe then it's a sad way for it to go out. Having recently finished reviewing all of 'Stargate' (other than the non-canon cartoon series, 'Infinity'), it's a bit of a comedown from the quality and inventiveness of 'Universe.' I hear there may be a reboot coming, whether that's true or not it's been talked about many times over the years, but if it's anything like this production they may as well forget it.

*

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

 DVD, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) film

This series became one I was very invested in as I saw II at the cinema, saw I not too much later on video, and from then on looked forward to another entry, which was a long time coming. But long waits between Missions was something to get used to, though in recent years they were becoming a touch more frequent at the same time as I was becoming a touch less anticipatory towards them, though I don't think that had as much to do with it as age and jaded appreciation for action films generally (and modern films as a whole!). I didn't hear a thing about this latest one, other than it was going to be 'Part One' for the first time ever (even though V and VI were somewhat linked), and the harbinger of the final film in the series. Partly, again, it was lack of excitement over the prospect despite a mild pleasure at the reassurance the films were still being made, but I also preferred to wait and see, hoping to be surprised. I used to have ideas for what I'd like to see, the tropes of the series (alternating long-hair, short-hair; spreadeagled limbs stunt; and of course no Mission would be complete without Luther Stickell and some motorbike and face mask action), but I've got past those checklist days and concentrate on content: are the stakes believable and well worked out, or is it full of holes? Is it whip-clever, knife-edge drama or is it too clever and convoluted for it's own good? Do we get old characters returning or is it a blank slate?

That last one has always been important to the health of the series both in front of and behind the camera: a different Director for every instalment gave each a unique visual identity and style. But it's the nature of long-running franchises to degenerate into something samey because it is tough to be different and unique while also staying true to the foundation laid out before, and they reused the same Director again, Christopher McQuarrie (who did both V and VI, didn't he? He also cowrote with Erik Jendresen who in the 2000s wrote an unused script for what would have been the next Trek film, though those are ten a penny these days!), which seems like overkill and suggests a new vision was required. One character points out Ethan Hunt is always going rogue and that does seem to be a habit of the stories, the same as in recent films the unreliability of their tech and gadgets, and the intentional humour at their predicaments have often undermined drama. When Bad Robot took over with III they came with their own too-realistic style of domestic down-to-earth nature mixed with the high concepts and ridiculous stunts, and that didn't exactly serve the setup well, especially as more and more humour was added at the expense of drama. The majority of the films are now too similar, as much as they're trying to do something bigger and more daring each time. But really the only thing that can have resonance are the characters and the bonds between them. In the same vein, especially as this is the first of the last, the beginning of the end, I was hoping for as many old characters returning to lend a hand as possible. The issue there is that an ensemble takes up a lot of time and so you can only concentrate on two or three of them properly (as the 'TNG' films proved).

As I was watching this one I was wondering if it was really worth parcelling out the story into a second part, and if the villain had been defeated it would have ended as any other Mission had before - it made me wonder if there'd be some big post-credits scene as is the norm in superhero films and other franchises looking to increase anticipation for the next part, and if so could they somehow bring back all the old villains? Then I remembered all the old villains were dead, they always end up dying even if Hunt isn't personally responsible for that except at the risk to his own life, because he was portrayed as an ethical hero, very unlike James Bond. (It's worth noting where those other big 'spy' action series' have gone in the time since Mission occurred: Brosnan's Bond was rebooted with Daniel Craig, and that era ended in death and awaits the next rebooting, while Jason Bourne seems to be solidly below ground in spite of the fact Matt Damon gave it a go at a resurrection and didn't kill off the character, but failed to recapture what worked before). If not villains then maybe more of the old cast could come back: how about Billy the Aussie pilot, or the Asian woman from III. Kittridge had always been high on the list and it was disappointing they never brought him back, but right from the opening when Hunt is receiving his instructions from a taped voice I thought it sounded like the old guy... Then we get a scene in which he actually appears, but I still wasn't quite sure, after all it had been over twenty-five years since Henry Czerny's appearance in I, but eventually as the scene progressed I realised it was undeniably the character (gave it away when they said his name, but I still wasn't sure if it was the same actor), and then it clicked into place! Excellent!

When you consider this guy was significantly older than Hunt in the first film and now even the eternally youthful Cruise himself is starting to show his age, he must be ancient! But as someone who grew up with the series myself and though younger, isn't young any more either, there was something reassuring about the fact this film is mostly about old grey-haired blokes, with the odd young woman thrown in for good measure! It really is an 'old-fashioned' film in the best sense of the words, and though I can't say the traditional Hollywood screwball comedy style with the hero and his young heroine handcuffed together, plus a Mini chase around Rome that brought to mind 'The Italian Job' was something I liked in the film, there is a sense of reassurance that this is rooted in a kind of reasonable reality that I feel too many films and TV shows are veering away from, as if it's 'wrong' to have a male hero and all the other tropes that make up normality rather than the bizarre societal mores taking more and more ground in the world today. So I applaud the fact it is a film that wouldn't look out of place in the Nineties, other than the effects. It's funny to realise that when Ethan, Luther and Benji are sitting around chatting, it's three old men! The villain, Gabriel, is another old guy, as is Kittridge (even one of the two American agents chasing Hunt throughout isn't a spring chicken!), but it doesn't matter, it's not important, it's not trying desperately to appeal to teens, though there's nothing to put them off. You could say it is generic action fare, and I'd agree, but there's also a history here because so much time has passed in the company of this core group.

History is an operative word as we're given some background (I don't just mean revealing Kittridge's first name as Eugene), on Hunt's motivation for joining the IMF in the first place, or at least some defining moment for him. That was a little weak, I have to say - at one point I wondered if they were going the whole hog and recreating parts of I since they'd already brought Kittridge back and this flashback was reminiscent of the moment one of Ethan's team was knifed on the mission in Prague. But that wasn't it, she seemed like someone close to him, but it wasn't spelt out clearly what that was about, who Gabriel was, or why he killed the woman. Are we to expect the details in Part Two or is it just one of those things we take as given that it was important but we don't have anything more? Establishing bonds is very important if we're to care about characters and though I felt they handled Luther and Benji significantly better than previously, Ilsa Faust was a different matter. There'd been a strange situation coming out of III when Hunt got married and, naturally, his new wife was put in jeopardy. They reminded us she still existed in IV, but then resolved it unsatisfactorily in VI where she at least played an important role and paid off the past, even though it would've been so much more meaningful to keep that part of Hunt's life going, unique and dramatic, even if difficult to justify for an action man role. Ilsa seemed to be his new woman after that, or had potential to be, but I'm not sure, and then this new girl, Grace, fills the role in some ways - it's telling she's there standing over Ilsa's dead body when Hunt finds her.

I didn't feel any sadness over Ilsa, strangely, she was just there, along for the ride, and while I didn't particularly expect anyone to be killed off, also knowing we're near the end it wasn't unlikely. At first I was wondering if Grace would rip off her face at some point to reveal Niah from II, but that really was unlikely, other than they were both thieves. I wouldn't say I was disappointed we didn't get any other cameos or roles other than the obvious White Widow from VI (supposedly the daughter of 'Max' from I, though I always find it annoying they don't clearly state that on screen!). They'd experimented with a new group of people when it seemed possible Cruise would be handing off to a younger action hero (say Jeremy Renner, with Alex Baldwin as boss), bumping Simon Pegg up to full cast member, and Luther had taken a backseat with his introduction. That was one good thing about this entry, Ving Rhames is back in prime position as the man of computers, which Benji had taken over. There appeared to be a little bit of competitiveness between them early on, but it didn't develop into anything, but at least Luther was the tech man while Benji was more active, appropriate as Pegg looks the more sprightly. Development wasn't one of the film's strengths. I could have done with more reference to them all being old (like the original 'Star Trek' films where they were clearly of a certain age, but it didn't matter because we loved them), such as how Luther is keeping up to date with the latest tech, or even turning it into an advantage since the story is largely concerned with modern technology being dangerously prone to control by artificial intelligence.

Those kind of nuances can't really be expected in an action flick, but it would have raised the story to at least the level of ideas and ideals seen in the better parts of The Dark Knight trilogy. There were seeds visible for planting, but they weren't watered and didn't grow into anything. The idea itself is full of intrigue: is what they continually call the Entity actually sentient as they say it is, or is it merely AI, because if it had become sentient does Ethan have the right to kill it, can't he talk to it, see if it has a personality that can be worked with? That's the Trekker view in me - clearly if it was merely artificial, just a very clever computer program, it can just be deleted without thought. But if it had achieved actual sentience? I know evidence is there of an evil nature (which makes sense coming from the mind of humanity which is fallen and requires redemption), murdering the Russian sub at the start, working with its chosen 'false prophet' Gabriel, a man who appears a bit of an automaton himself - indeed, I got the wrong end of the stick from the start and thought the Entity had a human form somehow (well, if the IMF can make lifelike masks of people so easily, why not a robot body that can pose as whoever it wants to), and I was dreading it turning into a 'Terminator' ripoff, but Gabriel did appear to be human. I thought the mysterious stranger entering the intelligence meeting was a robot come to kill them - they did say something like it could 'be' anyone, but later I came to the conclusion that meant impersonation in the digital world rather than reality! Gabriel came across cold, merciless, fanatical in his devotion to... what? Killing? Suffering? We're not told how he became like that, or why, so he's a very simplistic baddie, too much like the villain from IV who was also just an old guy who wanted to destroy everyone, and that was it.

Motivation was one of the film's weak points. We can believe in Hunt's sincerity as he dashes around all over the place, his earnest face telling us all we need to know about him (assuming we hadn't seen the other six films), but why do the other characters do what they do? Is Kittridge supposed to actually be a bad guy or does he really think America having the key to this weapon is the most important thing for the world's sake? Because the other guy in glasses (was that Cary Elwes?), seemed only to want power. Not sure why or what role he had, but obviously high up. The White Widow just wants money? I don't really know her or get her role in this or the last film (though Kirby's acting as someone pretending to be her was well observed). Arms dealer, that's it, I suppose. Grace wants a better life? I suppose. It was all a little flimsy for grownups, especially if you're used to watching old films where they couldn't often get away without a strong story and characterisations because they didn't have effects to dazzle an audience nowadays - I'm thinking of 'The Man Who Never Was' from 1955 which I watched recently and has more tension than this film, more reality to its stakes, and a more emotional connection. I will say I highly approved of the redemption of the Asian-Frenchwoman assassin, Paris. It didn't sit right Hunt should be knocking this girl's head into brick walls (all very well saying he spared her life, but I wouldn't rate her chances at avoiding dementia in later life after all that head-pounding!), either from a gentlemanly position or that she'd be a match for him. Circumstances were mitigated by there being another, burly bloke, and that Hunt is getting on a bit, but still...

But the fact she betrays her boss since he tried to kill her (and succeeded, just a matter of time), and chose to assist the goodies, was a real lift to the end of the film that reminded me of Mayday in 'A View To A Kill,' one of the reasons I feel so fondly towards that as one of the better Bond films. That whole ending with the train pushing out over the crumbling bridge was a strong, physical sequence that counterbalanced the CGI visuals that I was constantly suspicious of (I didn't believe for a moment they actually dropped real carriages into the river, it didn't have the weight, though even if I was proved wrong I'd say they didn't film it to get the best out of it, if so). There had been some nice shots such as the early police car chase with a camera sticking off the end of the vehicles that gave it a different look to the usual style where the view is bolted to the car, rigid and unmoving - here you had a greater sense of flying by the seat of the trousers, jerking around in the air, but it wasn't used overmuch. Climbing up the inside of the train carriages was another example of real classic film action, and the only downside of the whole thing was that Hunt needed rescuing at all (balanced by my favour towards redemption for a villain). That's one side that I miss from those early instalments, the fearless, unstoppable confidence of the man. That ended after III as I've noted in previous reviews, perhaps 'in-universe' you can put it down to dying and being brought back to life in that film, but however much I can rationalise, I never liked it.

As fast as Hunt can pelt it along streets or rooftops he can't disguise he doesn't have the same assuredness he once did as a younger man, and that's quite sad. That says more about his ageing than his face does. He isn't unbreakable, even if he does survive so much battering and rolling throughout with nary a complaint. But is the man worried about jumping off an outcropping the same man who used to go free climbing mountains? That more than anything brought home to me the changes he's gone through over the years and I miss that steely certainty, even if they're deliberately trying to make him more human. Perhaps they went too far in his greatest trial, that of whether to kill Gabriel, his personal nemesis, or not. They need him alive to find the Sevastopol submarine and unlock the Entity (although that does make you wonder how it can be out in the world, such as being the light show at the Widow's party - either it's locked up in the sub, or it's out there controlling things, isn't it?). Or is the sub merely where it's controlled from - even then it had compromised the systems on that boat, disabling the torpedo abort switch and running false readings to get them to fire in the first place. Too many such details were unclear, as was Hunt's history with Gabriel: he murdered some woman and Hunt would like him dead. Again, missing some of the ethical edges of the hero we knew and not enough is done in the film to make his feelings seem justifiable. He has to be pulled down from the deed at gunpoint when the agents catch up with him atop the train (another link back to the first film, maybe, where he had to go after the villain on a train's roof?), whereas I was hoping he'd make the choice of his own free will.

There were shades of more potentially thought-provoking stuff to rival the AI/sentience debate, and very apt for our time, too: manipulation of emotion versus staying rational. Hunt is warned that the Entity could use his emotional situation to predict his moves and control him, and he needs to become like it to defeat it, going against the modern predilection for emotionalism being the answer ('just do whatever feels right...'). But again, it's not explored, it's merely mentioned. If they had delved into some of these things it could have been a strong entry in the series, but as it stands I felt it one of the weaker examples. Not to say it wasn't enjoyable and there'll always be plenty of nitpicks in all the films (wouldn't the sub have a secondary kill switch to knock out the torpedo in case the first failed?; was all that thumpy music good for those old buildings?; why does one of Hunt's girlfriends have to die, just Gabriel showing his mean streak?; how can they rely on any tech if the Entity has its fingers in all the pies?; and most glaring of all: a vast hall full of workers and not one person looks up at the huge glass windows and sees gas and smoke when Hunt meets with Kittridge, not to mention this guy just walking into the room and no one paying any attention!), but it's what goes beyond the basics that makes a film stand out as special, even more within a long-running series. There's an idea of this Entity being 'Godless, stateless, amoral,' and that whomever controls it controls truth itself, referring to the ability of the internet and media to sway so many's perceptions of reality and fact. That's the real scare in all this, AI just the tool to show what's possible in mass delusion in today's world. We should be grateful they tackled it at all, even in an unsatisfactory way.

I expected the Entity's ability to use their own tech against them was going to be the clever new angle, but other than removing Gabriel from security recordings (and upsetting the admittedly great Augmented Reality glasses), at the Abu Dhabi airport and later impersonating Benji's voice to throw Ethan off the chase in Venice, that threat wasn't fully realised and it was more akin to IV where they didn't have access to the latest gear as they were (wait for it...), rogue again. They seem to manage perfectly well, there isn't particularly that Bourne ingenuity of using everyday items around them to succeed, so the film didn't appear that clever in itself. Lip service is paid to Kittridge using old CRT, offline computers, but it was a bit of a throwaway. And as a whole it did come across rather a messy story with a messy villain hierarchy of goons and higher-ups, where I prefer precision, planning and perfect double-tricks along with cutting edge, knife edge danger and close calls. The idea of 'put-pocketing' as opposed to 'pick-pocketing' was a nice little trick and there's plenty of sleight of hand, but it was one of those minor things that showed they could come up with nice ideas.

So that leaves execution and it's undoubtedly slick as it should be, but there wasn't the depth and core I need to call out a good film. I'd put it above IV, but below all the others, which is a shame because it started out (as they often do), suggesting it could contain a strong and pertinent theme. Maybe it's the fact I've watched so much of the original Sixties and Seventies TV series in recent years and that made me realise Mission was always a bit silly and fantastical. I had the vague, whimsical hope a CGI Peter Graves would somehow put in an appearance, as nonsensical as that would have been! Maybe someone could have used his face as a cover? The AI concept made me think of Cyberax from 'BUGS' and that was done a whole lot better and creepier, the same year the first film came out. That puts it all in perspective somehow. I haven't even referred to the big stunt! There's always The Big Stunt, probably the main reason Cruise likes doing the series, and I was waiting for it all the way through, suddenly realising it hadn't happened yet. I assume it was the motorbike off the cliff, then wing-gliding or whatever it's called, and finally parachuting. Somehow it didn't seem that spectacular, but maybe that was down to the way it was shot? It's not a criticism and in no way affects the quality of the film either way (my least favourite, IV, has probably the best stunt: swinging around on the tallest building in the world). But as I said I went in with no knowledge or expectation and the film as a whole was in the region of the other recent ones: I quite liked a good portion of it, but it didn't excel or bring much new, and was clumsy and messy, overlong for a series that works best at speed, and doesn't buck the trend in not exploring the characters - by now they should be doing at least some of that to increase the stakes. What did we really even know about Ilsa? Not that much. Potential, but not realised, meaning it ends up a reasonably jolly little outing. It was positive in the sense there isn't much bad language, I don't remember anything gory (the fighting's all crunch and thump), with no unnecessary romantic interludes to slow things up, so I wouldn't complain about the content. It's just everything else didn't content.

**

Rambo: Last Blood

 TV, Rambo: Last Blood (2019) film

Films are not one of my more common review topics these days - either I have too much to say about favourites or, more often, practically nothing for the vast majority, especially modern examples. But seeing the final (I assume), instalment in the Rambo series did give me a few thoughts in general and specifically. To give some background I saw the original trilogy twenty years ago and enjoyed the first two quite a lot - the first featured this broken man who snapped and became a kind of Jason Bourne or Batman figure, using all his jungle fighting skills learned in the Vietnam war to protect himself against a hostile civilian society and dealt with the issue of veterans who returned to hatred and fear, coming only years after the conflict ended in the real world. In the book on which it was based I believe the character dies at the end, but that doesn't make good business sense so of course he survived, and the second film had much of its pleasure coming from the fact that in the first John Rambo was reacting, while in the second he's recruited to go in and achieve mission goals so we get to see what he was like in the field rather than a 'domestic' setting. There's some tragedy with his native wife or girlfriend (it's been a while since I saw it), being killed, some great action sequences and though it doesn't have any of the complexity of the first story, it gives you what you want to see: Rambo doing what he does best, and not merely for survival this time.

'Rambo III' was where the series lost any sense of depth or being more than gorily violent Eighties action, with a slim plot about his now-peaceful (if you ignore his stick-fighting to pay his way!), retired from action, man in a foreign country having to go back into the throng to save his former commanding officer, but is really just an excuse to have Stallone kill lots of enemies (the bit where he cauterises a wound that goes right through his side by pulling a rag into it and setting it on fire in the inky blackness of a cave was certainly memorable!), and was the first one where I didn't feel like it was about anything. The fourth instalment came much later, almost twenty years after and once again was really just an excuse for Rambo to kill, even if it was for a good cause (it's always for a good cause), and because Sylvester Stallone was bringing back his two most famous roles, Rocky and Rambo, from a different era, in a time when CGI spectacle had become the norm. I remember one prominent film critic complaining about how he'd met the actor once and Stallone had reportedly said he'd never bring back those characters because that would be stupid, but everyone's allowed to change their mind so I don't criticise him for doing it, I just wish there had been a return to a deeper look at an issue, whether that be the treatment of soldiers by society, the psychological or physical difficulties of trying to readjust to that society, or anything else, rather than merely a nostalgia for 'simpler times' where it was about men standing up and being men, and as much violence as could be gotten away with.

From this fifth film's title I thought two things: one, they would probably kill off Rambo in this one - Stallone's getting on a bit (is he in his seventies?), so it would be questionable how to put him in the kind of situation you'd expect from the Rambo name, and two, that perhaps there would be some kind of circle-closing story as the titles 'First Blood' and 'Last Blood' are so nicely reflective. Of course titles and such like are designed for marketing purposes, so they want you to assume there's going to be something more to this, that's how the business of film works. In reality I found there was something less. I liked the title, I liked the fact that almost forty years after he first played the role, Stallone was back again - I hadn't expected it after the fourth film, as it seemed like it was just a revival to remind us of a character of long ago, not designed to turn him into a modern sequel franchise. I also quite liked the fact that Rambo has found a measure of peace through a surrogate family, his friendly old housekeeper and a daughter in his charge, a nice ranch, a love of horses, it's all quite pleasant, even if you know things aren't going to stay that way.

It's difficult to see how Rambo can get back into the action that made his name, he's clearly not going to go off to war and they'd already done the plot of him being in the right spot to rescue some victims that require his brand of DIY wilderness warfare. Instead, the troubles come from a very different source, a Mexican drugs and prostitution cartel that scoop up unwary young women and cruelly abuse them without compunction - indeed, the main villain, one of two brothers who run this evil crime organisation, practically boasts about how they mean absolutely nothing, over the broken body and face of Rambo after he's gone after his kidnapped surrogate daughter when she's disobeyed his orders not to go to her birth Father, a despicable, angry man who unsurprisingly doesn't want anything to do with her. I can't imagine he'd have been happy for her to be kidnapped, raped and forced into drug dependency, despite his bitter and cruel shattering of any illusions she might have had about why he left her and her Mother, but we never really get to know him other than hearing bad things about him and seeing the utter disregard for his young daughter in the face of his new family. On his side there are hints that he had reasons for his more minor villainy - bitter about his wife's dying of cancer and leaving him with this young girl, not wanting his current family disrupted by the past, but he's also less than sympathetic in the way he treats her and in the fact he claims they held him back and he was merely bored with them. This may be true or it may be that he has so much resentment over what happened that he was nastier to his daughter than he really feels - people will often lash out in that circumstance, whether that be physically or emotionally.

I liked that Rambo didn't actually harm him, or Gizelle, the 'friend' who first leads the daughter into trouble by telling her she's located her Father. He's very threatening to them both as the swiftest means of narrowing down exactly where his daughter is, but both are tragic figures. Perhaps they are evil, but not in the same league as those from the cartel - it's more about sins of omission and bad character than doing actual harm to the girl. I keep calling her 'the girl' or 'the daughter' because I don't actually remember her name! Considering she's basically the second most important character in the story (if you discount the villains), I didn't feel the setup for Rambo's position in life was well explained. Maybe I missed a line of dialogue early on, but I didn't quite understand how he came to be in that position - I thought it was said she was the daughter of a friend and now he was looking after her, but Manuel (for some reason I can remember the Dad's name!), was much younger than Rambo and clearly there was no friendship there at any time. Was Rambo a friend of the dead Mother? I didn't recall how he ended up at the end of 'Rambo' (the fourth film - I always thought it was called 'John Rambo' in the same way as the sixth Rocky film was called 'Rocky Balboa,' but it seems it was a title stripped right back to basics), and having only seen that once, over a decade ago, I couldn't say if there's any sense of connection to where he ended up there. Probably not, I'd imagine.

The lack of connection with the character and where he came from was a problem for me and one more reason why I didn't connect with this version - he didn't seem to particularly be Rambo other than obviously all the DIY traps and ability to use hit and run tactics in what was essentially a gory, 'adult' version of 'Home Alone' - that was exactly what I was thinking in that last half hour during the assault on his ranch. He sits in his rocking chair on the porch at the end and says something about this being the home where he was born and he'll protect it with his life or something, but I wasn't sure if we were supposed to take this as the specific house where he was born that he'd gone back to (like James Bond in 'Skyfall,' perhaps an inspiration?), or whether he meant America in general, as obviously Rambo was a very patriotic character. But I was disappointed there wasn't any reference to his past, specifically Richard Crenna's commanding officer. I know we see some photos of Rambo as a young soldier, and the big thing is using shots from the previous four films in the closing credits (which also had a nice piece of music - not to the level of 'It's A Long Road,' or the musical theme of 'First Blood' which was echoed briefly in places, but pleasant), to evoke how those films used to end, but he could have been Rocky, he could have been the guy he plays in 'The Expendables,' he just seemed to be Stallone. Maybe I'm judging too harshly, and it's true that I haven't watched the other films for a few years (really need to revisit those first two!), but there seemed more continuity of character in them and I was hoping for a closing of the circle, as I said.

I don't mean we needed CGI Crenna or anything like that, but they could have used his voice and maybe done flashbacks to Vietnam, or something to tie things together. There were one or two scenes where he does gaze into the distance remembering his war experiences, so it's not that the past is never referenced at all, but it's just difficult to connect this guy to the character. I'm sure that would be the case for any long-running character who has been reprised by the original actor in old-age - look at Patrick Stewart for a typical example of how badly it can go, he's a mere shadow of the great Captain Picard to the extent it's hard to watch and believe in him when all his nobility and power is stripped away. I don't know whether it was intentional to show Rambo is out of practice and age has affected his senses or judgement, but the way he just goes in seemingly without a plan to rescue his charge from the cartel was surprising. I know he's angry, but with such a delicate situation and the high stakes, you'd think he'd have been more prepared. I liked his bravery at not submitting to the vast numbers of nasty, weapon-wielding criminals, and he just keeps his head up and faces the villain down, but it did look foolhardy and it was only the villain's own arrogance and cruelty that he got out alive - they leave him battered on the ground so he can live out his life knowing what happened to the girl. In that respect I found the film to be quite a miserable story. I wanted him to get to the girl before it was too late and she was violated and an addict, but even Rambo can't stop the evil, seems to be the message.

It was a bit far-fetched that he could recover in just a few days, too. This journalist who rescues him and gives him sanctuary was an odd addition as she never really went anywhere in the story. I thought it would become some kind of mission to take down the cartel and her testimony would be vital, but before the end when he goes back to her, she just disappears. I assumed she gave him specific knowledge about the place where the brothers lived, or something along those lines, but her contribution wasn't clear at all. It's good that he was able to go back in (a courageous act considering the beating he'd taken the first time), and save the girl, only it was too late, she'd been ruined. Of course it's never really too late, a person can still be salvaged, but she was too far gone and dies on the journey home. I suppose it was a good message for teens about not disobeying parents or guardians because their rulings are there for your protection, but it was a bleak end result, and Rambo's life has basically been ripped apart once again. I understand that this is the motivation for his vicious revenge spree, both at the cartel's place and back on the farm where he goads them into coming after him, but it's still so negative. This was where the film took its turn towards ultimate misery and depression: I know the point of Rambo as he became was to do just that, wreak havoc on an implacably evil enemy of ordinary people, but it's just a sad state of affairs. If it had been more noble, like working with the journalist to take the cartel down somehow, saving his daughter and making all right with the world it could have had an inspiring, vindicating ending, but instead it just comes across as pure, grim bloodthirstiness sating his lust for revenge. But what then?

I found it hard to believe that these cartel bullies would be so well trained that they'd assault the farm like a troop of soldiers, or that on having several of them killed gorily by the various traps and pitfalls, they wouldn't have scattered and run from the place. But that was the Rambo method: a one man army who can take down the opposition with his skills and ingenuity. I liked the idea of a location he's prepared ready to take out an enemy, but it was just a little hard to fully buy. It's odd he built all these tunnels, and never explained. Was it that he always expected to have to fight off a group sometime? I suppose it gives the audience what they wanted, Rambo killing in the most violent way possible, but it was too much. The film also had the impression of being quite small because there weren't many locations and then the farm is the main scene of action, and even the travelling to Mexico and back seems like it's not far away. I don't know, up until the point his daughter died and took away all hope that his life could go on as it had, I quite liked the film, but it was too bleak, too miserable. I'm not sure whether the character should have been killed off or not, to be honest I'm not even sure it matters because what's left is a dead man, if not physically then in every other way. Maybe they were trying to touch on that tragic end from the first film where he's carted away to prison, but there didn't seem to be anything left for him here. He's shot twice by the villain so he could easily have died and the film could even be suggesting he's going to sit on this rocking chair and die now, but I didn't get that from the final scene.

Films have been playing on nostalgia for a long time, bringing characters back, and that still makes money. Would I want a sixth Rambo film? I don't think so because I don't think we really got a proper fifth Rambo film, and even the third and fourth lost what made the first two special. This isn't the kind of film I would rewatch as it really was over the top gore and had little-to-no thematic or inspirational value, it really did seem negative and depressing (much like 'Star Trek: Picard' actually, to return to the Patrick Stewart comparison), and served only to lessen my appreciation of the character and his life rather than put a cap on it - rather like Rambo to the villains, they put a cap in him instead! In the end I'd gone from interested to disappointed to depressed, and I like a good action film, but I also like a hero that means more than killing and has the self-knowledge to learn and grow and Rambo had lived through enough that he should have been in a better place no matter what came against him.

*

Stargate: Continuum

DVD, Stargate: Continuum (2008) film

This is it, folks. The final mission of SG-1, all back together, plus others, versus the might of the old System Lords. Sort of. Critiquing this second and final film in the 'SG-1' straight-to-DVD spinoff series feels almost impolite since it is the cap on ten years and one other film (not including the original theatrical release that started it all), and is the true successor to the 'Stargate' lore - while 'Ark of Truth' was more of a feature-length conclusion to Season 10, this definitely succeeded in tying all of the series together, going back into its past to provide something of what was missing in the previous film. At the same time I can understand why it wasn't successful enough to warrant further DVD releases. I have no idea what the plan was, whether they only ever expected to make two films or whether they were hoping it would be popular with the mainstream, but judging from the fact there were no more (despite the fact another spinoff series would be shortly forthcoming at that time, while the first spinoff was drawing to a close), suggests it wasn't viable as a business model to continue 'SG-1' adventures. What I would say is that it was an improvement over 'Truth': it's one more mission, there aren't any plots that need tying up, other than the fact Baal is still at large, and they could really go to town. In consequence it does come across as having those missing elements I noticed from 'Truth,' namely less focus on action and more on character and ideas.

Time travel and alternate dimensions - that's classic sci-fi. Bringing everyone back (well, almost - Bra'tac was still an absence felt), that's what you should spend your budget on. But, and I admit I'm being pedantic here, or greedy, or contrary, I found myself wishing we could have one more mission that was more conventional in the sense that we got all four of the team, plus O'Neill, working together, being together, perhaps even reminiscing, reminding us why we love them. In the same way people complained about the multiple endings in 'The Lord of The Rings' and I loved it, I wanted that. I wanted to see them all sat round at the end, maybe hanging out at Jack's fishing pond as we've seen before. Even the sight of the lockers' names lined up together would have been a more appropriate last shot than the photo of Mitchell with his Grandfather (?), which made the final impression more about the latecomer of the last two seasons than the original team. But it is being churlish and nit-picky, I did like seeing these characters again. And yet... I wasn't entirely sure what the timeline was - I think it's supposed to be in parallel with 'Atlantis' Season 5 and yet no mention of Carter having recently returned from being boss there or indication of what their lives are now. Maybe I wasn't listening carefully enough, but I didn't catch what they're all doing at the beginning, though it does make sense they'd be rounded up to see Baal's extraction/execution.

Did Mitchell hang around in the past for ten years since I thought Carter said they could only get as close as 1929, and the Achilles, the ship carrying the Stargate from Africa to America was boarded and sunk by Baal in 1939? If so, then he'd have something in common with Teal'c, who also spent many years waiting for time to catch up in the final episode of the series. But there's only so much time, even in a feature-length production. My big nitpick was how the 'gate could have been activated in the first place when it's in a crate in the hull of a ship with no means of power? I understood Baal, and later the alternate Teal'c, were able to power up a 'gate with that handy portable DHD (smacked a bit of magic tech, though...), but that wasn't there when Baal first used it to get through! And I felt Christopher Judge should really have gone back to his bald look since he was effectively playing the bad guy again as First Prime. He didn't strictly need to for the story to work because it is an alternate timeline, but at the same time it would have placed the character more squarely in that mould. I hope it wasn't simply a vanity issue, like Judge didn't want to have the shaved head look because he'd moved on from it? These are minor things indeed in the face of having Daniel, Sam, Teal'c, Jack, Cam, Vala, Landry, Hammond, all those baddies (hey, Yu! and Camulus, Nirrti, Cronus, Apophis), to compliment Baal, not to mention President Hayes, and even minor roles like Major Davis, Siler, Walter...

It really delved into the series' history when a lot of that (other than Baal as the last surviving System Lord), had been left behind in the final few seasons as it tried to reinvent itself to some degree. That's what made it a more enjoyable film, but also that they did something interesting. But I wanted Jack along for the ride when we mostly get alternate Jack, and then he's gone. I was starting to feel the real horror and isolation and sadness of Carter, Jackson and Mitchell being held prisoner in their own country, yet in another timeline. Forbidden from contacting each other they're given new lives that they live for a year. You really start to feel for their existence, as lonely and separate as could be in this completely other world that is yet still torturously close to what they left behind, and they can't even talk to each other, just try to live a new life. For me, that was the most fascinating part of the film and one I wished had been explored more. I so wanted Daniel to meet this world's version of himself, the only one of the three to be alive, but when he does call him, he's rejected as a crank or a mocker, this Daniel has been so long on the fringe of society he doesn't even believe anyone would sympathise with his ideas. We don't even hear the conversation and yet you can tell from our Jackson's side how it's playing out. Mitchell is still feeling the tug of a past that no longer exists and Carter is trying to keep on going, but there wasn't enough of that for my liking.

Sure, we've seen similar tales where they've been in other realities, or had to persuade other versions of themselves to help them escape or reset the timeline or whatever, but with an episode being half the length of the time you have in one of these they could have spent more on that. But the needs of a production that has to hit certain points means even with more space there's still too little time to fully explore ideas. While I'm stating dissatisfaction I can also point out the lower standards from the series in terms of more gore and swearing, as if that brings more to the table. It doesn't. There's also another big gaffe I should point out regarding alternate Teal'c: he comes to trust the trio far too easily. Daniel 'gives him their word' that the Jaffa will be free again if Teal'c helps them. Why would he trust them? He's been working for Apophis and now Baal, there was no good reason for him to believe what they said and to come around to their point of view so easily. But it uses the series' lore very well, not just in bringing back so many faces, but also in remembering where and how many Stargates are on Earth, the Ancients' chair that fended off the weapon on our Earth, even little details like transporting the 'gate to America, which fills in a little more history, or Daniel mentioning Jack's son's death (not the best idea in this case, especially when they knew this was an alternate timeline so things weren't necessarily going to be as they knew them to be), prompting his anger when they needed an ally.

I think more than anything that's what I was missing in this particular adventure: more of the camaraderie. I wanted to see alternate Jack, Landry and Hammond trust these people that know a version of them so well, and come to support them. I know that may sound a little hypocritical when I've just been complaining about how Teal'c was too quick to assist them, but he was on the baddies' side and these were fellow humans so it would have made more sense. I would have loved it to be some kind of crossover with the Atlantis team, too, if that were possible, because obviously the humans at least would still be on Earth, so Sheppard and McKay could have joined in. But again, it's pure greed just wanting more of the things you like, and to be fair we'd get cameos from a few characters from both 'SG-1' and 'Atlantis' in 'Universe,' but perhaps a third film, if it'd happened might have been a massive crossover. And you have to be true to your story - it doesn't make something better just to chuck people in for the sake of it, and that's why I was quite impressed with how many people they did get back in their roles, long gone from the series itself (like the System Lords all lined up like that, or Apophis, back from the 'dead' yet again).

I must admit, I did wonder if both Teal'c and Jackson would make it out alive, despite the fact that there was time travel involved, mainly because Teal'c wouldn't show up again (unless he comes back one last time in 'Atlantis' which I don't know for sure yet, but seems unlikely since they gave him a good, round sendoff there), and I have the impression Daniel's only in some training videos on 'Universe.' But once Carter got killed on Baal's time travel platform I realised things were safe and of course there was no need for any of them to die since they were repairing the timeline! Which does have the advantage of making the story 'all a dream,' when perhaps more grounding would have been preferred as the final ever story proper. When viewed on its own I can't imagine it would make a great deal of sense for someone who'd never seen any 'Stargate' before, but if you know the characters it was good enough to stand as a reasonable adventure. It didn't have enough inherent qualities that I'd be quick to fling it on again, unlike some episodes, but I would easily concede it has the superiority over its immediate predecessor. So there was progress made, and perhaps if it had gone to more films they might have kept improving, but as it is it remains a nice ending to the series, without being an ending, and more like another episode, though one that didn't have as much power as 'Unending,' the series finale, which, while not being a masterpiece, was a fine, fine story and use of the characters. I miss there being a title sequence, but you can't do the one from the series without it seeming a bit cheap, but something more than the names coming up would have been preferable. If this is the last of 'SG-1' (and you never know in today's nostalgia-obsessed world), it could have been a lot worse, and I'm glad I had this little extra time with those people I'd spent so much time with over the last twenty years.

**

Rogue One

TV, Rogue One (2016) film

It's taken me some time to see this first true spinoff of the 'Star Wars' saga, mainly because I was so underwhelmed by the bland Episode VII, 'The Force Awakens' more aptly known as The Force Nods Off, or The Force Rehashes. I didn't go to the cinema to see the three succeeding spinoffs and sequels, and intensely mixed reactions suggested an iffy chance on whether I'd have been right to do so. I all but lost interest in the Disney-fied version of what was once the greatest trilogy of all time (since superceded by 'The Lord of The Rings'), and didn't care if I ever saw the films I'd missed. I hadn't even bought the DVDs as they never went down to a low enough price for me to consider it a worthwhile investment, either of my time or money, so I had to wait until this one came to Freeview TV. I went in expecting it to play out one of two ways: either it would increase my apathy and lack of connection to the franchise, or it would interest me and make me think there were worthwhile films to be told outside of George Lucas' uncertain hands. Immediate impressions were mixed - for some reason I liked the opening of that Imperial Shuttle skimming across the horizon of this planet, and though it's somewhat strange not to have the booming 'Star Wars' name blazing across the screen as it recedes into the vastness of space, for the first time ever, the usual opening crawl and pulp science fiction serial scene setting wasn't missed for this story.

It did initially appear to be going down the Disney route again (though I suppose this was only the second of their films so it wasn't getting as old yet), with the starring role given to some little girl, but at least she was supported by Mads Mikkelsen as her Father, an actor I've esteemed ever since first seeing him as Le Chiffre in the best James Bond film ever made, 'Casino Royale.' While there is an element of recognisable actors taking you out of the story a little (oh, it's Mads; it's Ben Mendelsohn; it's Forest Whitaker), the same could have been said upon first viewing the original 'Star Wars' - it's Alec Guinness, it's Peter Cushing! But they've become embedded in those roles through long association, and while I don't expect the same thing will happen with these films since they aren't the genre-defining game-changer the originals were, still living off the ancient blood of those greats, it's not a problem for the film. I will say that, after getting past the little girl opening and moving into the future, it does take the film quite a time to get going. We're introduced to various characters, but we don't get to know them or penetrate into the story. The story itself is much clearer cut than the Rey trilogy, which is a big plus, but it does suffer from the same almost aimless travelling around from planet to planet and character to character for an early chunk of the film.

As much as I loved seeing the old 1970s aesthetic of what a big budget sci-fi spectacular should look like, the definitive 'Star Wars' look, the old Stormtroopers, ships and all, it wasn't until well into the film that I truly began to be engaged. Thinking back I think the moment that it first sparked something for me was when they call the stolen Imperial ship 'Rogue One,' and I realised that I hadn't even considered where the title came from, so little thought had I given the film before seeing it. So something clicked there as we realise this small band of rebels even against the Rebellion, are the crew of this ship which gave us the title. It wasn't much, but it was something, and as things progressed I found more to be interested in until it culminated in a great ending that connected strongly. I didn't know that much about the film other than it was about spies that steal the plans for the Death Star (no, not the 'many Bothan spies' who died to bring the Rebellion the information on the second Death Star in 'Return of The Jedi,' it would be easy to confuse the two), they were all going to die at the end (makes sense), Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader and Princess Leia were all going to appear, and Vader had a much lauded scene of slaughter.

Before coming to the film I really didn't know if I'd even have enough thoughts or interest to be encouraged to write a review, but there were plenty of points of intrigue or discussion that prove the film was engaging mentally. One of the biggest issues the film raised was in production, outside of the universe and story: should we bring back dead actors to reprise their roles in modern films? It's a fascinating question to explore because there are the ethics as well as the technical achievement. I was undecided about it, and remain so, but I do feel they were entirely true to the original characters in this particular instance. CGI manipulation had been around for a number of years prior to this, with such films as 'X-Men: The Last Stand' attempting to show de-aged versions of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen that was a sight to see, but mainly looked off-kilter. Technology had improved to the point where they could do a whole performance within that realm, but it was still not quite right. It's fun to have Peter Cushing back, but there's something dead about Tarkin, the eyes have no soul, maybe that's it, or the skin is too flat. I don't know what it was, but I suspect even if you didn't know the actor you'd sense things were off. They wisely didn't do anything out of the ordinary, seeing him (and Leia at the end), in the kind of setting we saw them before, doing and saying what they did in the original, and so there wasn't much to get wrong - in fact Leia's one word is a triumphant moment to end the film, perfectly judged.

The question of whether it's right to do this is something else, and is a serious quandary. I don't want to see a young William Shatner as Captain Kirk, spouting swearwords and doing things he wouldn't have done in the original 'Star Trek,' and that's the danger: that filmmakers misuse the likenesses of actors against either the original character or the attitudes of the actor. There's also something to be said for an actor's career having an end, as everything does. Who are creatives to come along and decide that they're going to resurrect a popular figure of the past, to exploit them as novelty value? Would I go and see a new John Wayne film that had been shot today? I can't say that I wouldn't, but it would be a novelty and I suspect such things would be abused, with political motives, whether to deal with minorities, the environment or any other current issue, and by the nature of modern storytelling, probably be untrue to an actor or the characters they played. That's the big trouble with this stuff, even if the estate of the actor concerned sells the rights, it's a dangerous path to tread. It also leads me on to a point that was a negative for this film, and for most modern films that aren't set contemporaneously: modern sensibilities, especially in speech.

Now granted, there was no swearing, no gore, no romance in this film, and it was all the better for it, but at the same time the characters do use turns of phrases or patterns of speech that you wouldn't necessarily expect from a film made in 1977, and so I do wish that as closely as they aligned the visuals to the period of the first 'Star Wars,' I would have liked it a lot more if it had been made, directed and shot in the same way, and written as it if was a period piece, Shakespearean and staged. I know it's really a misconception on my part, and that the ideas I have of westerns or war films are largely a 1940s-1960s version of the past, which use the language and sensibilities of those decades rather than an accurate representation of the period they're portraying, and that films have generally always been made to be identifiable to the audience of the time in which they came out. I understand that, but it also lessens my appreciation of modern films when they portray a period, yet talk in the same way as the current generation, or ignore the style of the past. 'Star Trek' is the perfect example - for so long it had a developing aesthetic that was beholden to the design history of each series that came out, but in the current films and 'Discovery,' that was abandoned in favour of remaking an old era with modern visuals that don't fit the established history, and current speech patterns. It's frustrating and a slap in the face to people that have followed the unfolding future history, but this film was an antidote to that, a balm that showed you can play in an era that was created in the past without needing to completely overhaul it!

They managed to extrapolate from the production design of the Original Trilogy (OT), and paint a world of the Empire and alien worlds that fit with what had gone before, and we even get to revisit character or locations. I really liked how they bridged both the hated prequels and the loved OT with things like the Yavin base, the little cameo from C-3PO and R2-D2 that was completely unexpected (though they probably have as much, or more, time together here than the whole current trilogy did, which is sad!), and the small roles for both Bail Organa ('King' of Alderaan, I suppose), and Mon Mothma! But you cannot live on cameos alone, and if the new characters had fallen flat, the film would have been as average and dull as Rey's films. So it was fortunate that, though they weren't instant classics, this little band of rebels worked well enough that you bond with them, and their deaths are meaningful, unlike the main characters in the new trilogy, any of which could have died and it would have been of no consequence to me! Almost immediately this gang are more likeable and interesting than those dullards, and Tarkin's subordinate is less annoying or a figure of fun than General Hux was. I was unsure about the droid (K?), who was a droll, casual version of 3PO, and throughout the film I never trusted him, expecting this reprogrammed Imperial droid to be a plant by the baddies who would turn on them when they least expected it. Instead he gets as heroic a death, defending his friends, and we see a mini arc conclude when Jyn shows her trust in him by handing him a Blaster.

One digression: I did wonder at the logic of this Empire who can build droids that are this strong and accurate and don't use them as their army rather than the consistently poor shots of the flesh and blood troops. I like how accurate that is with the OT, but this one droid can take out loads of them before he's dispatched, and that wasn't the only flaw I noticed in what was a generally tight story: how could they take down even one AT-AT with blasting weapons when they're supposed to be 'too strong for Blasters,' yet that's exactly what happens when one of the legs is targeted and they bring it down. Perhaps this skirmish forced the Imperials to toughen the armour to what it was at the Battle of Hoth. There are always going to be holes or mistakes in a film, the important thing is whether you can forgive them and move on, or come up with an explanation as I just have, and if you like a film it's more of a boon than a mistake as it forces you to think about what this may mean in-universe, which gives you more investment therein. One other rather large question that hovers over not just this film, but all of them, is just how much the ordinary mortal can have dealings with the Force. This was prompted by the blind monk-like character who has a strong belief in it, but isn't a Jedi.

The Jedi were wiped out, we saw that in Episode III, and in the OT I always got the impression that such beliefs were generally long dead, nor was it ever really explained what it took to be a Jedi, that was the mystery and myth of it all that made those films such a draw. If it was as simple as trusting in the Force and allowing it to work through you then why did we need Luke? That's where the problem lies: whatever you do, if you're going to do it by using parts of the other films, since that's what 'Star Wars' is, then it undermines those originals. How do you make something that is part of an ongoing mythos, yet don't rely on the parts of it that need to be unique to the other films? In most cases you don't, so in most cases these films fail. Not financially, giving the people more of what they want is the easy option (as much as making a film can ever be an easy option!), but giving them something that builds on the other things they like, but is significant in its own right? That's tough. There's an appetite to learn more about this world, the Force, the Empire, the heroes, that's why we want more 'Star Wars,' after all, but ever since the prequels explained so much and took away the mystery, and narrowed the time period, the settings and what you could expect, it took away from the speculation and the joy of discovery and potential in the OT. More is definitely less. But if you are going to do more you need to find ways of adding something without taking away, and I took this blind character as an attempt to do that.

He is faithful, despite his friend's disbelief, a Luke and Han dynamic, but anything he does can be attributed to his skill and training, his honed senses, and pure chance that he didn't get shot when he takes it upon himself to go out into the firefight and press the lever that will transmit the essential data. If you want to read it that he does have a closeness to the Force, you can, but it's ambiguous and we're spared learning any more about him or anyone else by the fact that we only have this one film to know these characters. I must admit, I'd much rather have seen this as the culmination of a new trilogy set between III and IV (just as in 2006 it was first announced that a series set in that period was going to happen), than the trilogy we got, but who knows if dragging out the characters across three films would have worked any more than Rey, Finn and Poe did? The important thing was that there was actual dramatic stakes between characters, Captain Andor (a Trek reference, or coincidence?), having the mission to kill Jyn's Dad, Galen Erso, but at the moment of truth he couldn't do it. I thought this was going to be the thrust of the film, but it occurred relatively early in the story, Galen dying anyway through the friendly fire of a Rebel attack. Andor reminds Jyn that she's not the only one to lose everything, and that was an important point, too - just as Luke would find his simple life broken when his Uncle and Aunt are murdered and the homestead burned. It shows that this horror was happening to a lot of people which in turn makes the Rebellion more real, whereas Rey, her life and her motivations were never very strong.

For these reasons, this film felt far more 'Wars' than Disney compared to the trilogy, so it was sad that everyone had to die, but then it may be that their fleeting contribution made them bittersweet characters whom didn't outstay their welcome. I really was impressed over all - you know where we're going and what has to happen, one flaw with a prequel that can be turned to an advantage because there's a melancholy to the inevitable, and while Anakin's descent was of a similar stripe, it was never logical or earned, where these people met their fates heroically. You care what happens to them, and the film doesn't let you down on the war front either, with probably the best space battle scenes of any of the new films, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, ground forces, it was all marshalled to an understandable and believable conclusion, far from the messy retreads of the trilogy. With this there's a connection that goes beyond the nostalgia for seeing old faces - the cameos fit neatly in this one and it made me think I'd have been happy if I'd gone to see this at the cinema, where the others have been disappointments. I liked that in the same way as playing the side missions away from the known battles of the OT in games like 'Rogue Leader' on the GameCube, or watching the old 'Droids' cartoon of the 1980s, this was away from the main stage, but still of importance, tragic in its impression of forgotten heroes in the Rebellion and setting up 'A New Hope' perfectly. I only wished that the Battle of Scarif was actually on Kothlis from 'RL'!

The final thing I need to mention is Vader's role. I'd had it reiterated by various people how cool his scene at the end was - I knew he was going to kill a load of people and I went into the film wondering if I was going to feel uncomfortable, as if it was going to glorify his evilness and make you want to cheer him on, which is clearly wrong since he's evil. But delighting in power, whether it's good or evil seems to be something more common now, and the impression I get with some 'Star Wars' games I've heard about is an ambivalence between right and wrong, almost as if it's a good thing to have the option to be a Sith rather than a Jedi, it's just a 'different' path. Like the vague nature of the Force and its impersonal existence, it becomes more about making choices rather than absolutes - as they openly said in one film, only the Sith deal in absolutes, which was always a worrying admission in my eyes. But far from the Vader scene being something to glorify him, it was a tense moment on a much smaller scale than I'd anticipated as the man in black stalks the Rebel ship's corridor and a rebel desperately tries to deliver the plans, then he uses all the powers at his disposal to grab guns, deflect Blaster fire, levitate enemies and slice through them with his lightsaber - it was cool, but it wasn't excessive. I'd imagined either a mass slaughter of Rebels or Director Krennic and his supporters being put in their place, a horror of fascination with the evil powers Vader possesses, but it was matter of fact and direct, with the heroes winning out, even at the cost of those sacrificed beneath the red beam of death.

The film tripped along, despite the running time, and unlike Rey's boring trilogy which often drags, and it showed how to do a prequel - indeed, you can't get more of a prequel than this, directly before IV, and its mix of a new group out on their own mission against orders, taking place off to the side of a larger world, gave it that remote feeling those OT films were so good at. I was surprised and pleased to find I liked it, and while it only just ticks across the line into my good books, the ending is what pushes it through. If I was going to rank the films I'd say this was one of the middling ones below the OT and Episode I, but better than all the other Disney 'Star Wars' films. It's probably just below Episode III, but it's hard to say without watching both of them again. The fact that I had the desire to write a review at all shows that this was a worthwhile film, and in a decade where there's been sparse comfort in viewing new films (off the top of my head I can only think of 'The Dark Knight Rises' and 'Interstellar' as being ones I really liked), it's good to have one more to add to the list. Long live the Rebellion!

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