Reviews

WARNING - SPOILERS!

Abysmal failure. A sucker punch to the gut for Star Wars fans everywhere.

1. Luke. Our greatest Hollywood hero just dies (vanishes) for no reason. We'll never see the jedi master in action. No lightsaber fight either. There was a bit of hope when he showed up on the mine planet.... Finally we'll see Luke's full power as he takes on the whole army! Nope. Luke isn't even there. And milking an alien? No, just no.

2. The pointless middle of the movie. As it turns out, the entire casino planet plot + DJ were useless to the story and served only to eat time.

3. Rey's parents. It feels like Disney has been handed such a great legacy, but the decision was just to throw it in the trash. No Rey Solo. No Rey Skywalker. No Rey Kenobi. Nothing. No interesting familial connection whatsoever. This was billed as the new trilogy's super climactic moment, but, well... It ended up being the biggest let down. Just like Luke throwing his lightsaber over the cliff.

4. Force texting. Rey and Kylo's Force connection was interesting, but ended up getting massively overused and ridiculous. A shirtless Kylo? Really?

5. Leia flying with the Force after getting blown up and frozen in the cold vacuum of space.

6. Rey's non-existent jedi training. Luke's disillusionment was an interesting part of the story--for the first 30 minutes. Then it started to destroy all we knew and loved about our hero. By the time he comes around to training Rey it's too late. She gets one or two minutes of illumination from the master and then is off to face Ren.

7. Snoke. No backstory. An anti-climactic death. He could read all of Kylo's thoughts, but perhaps missed that Kylo was about to cut him in half.

8. Unlimited transport ships. At the rate the First Order was blowing them up, the Resistance should have been left with about -20 ships.

9. Constant plot holes and things that contradicted the SW universe. Using the Force halfway across the Galaxy. The tracking device that doesn't need a tracking beacon. The main First Order ship gets blown up along with its hangar bay, yet the First Order then manages to land its whole army in prep for the final battle.

We're used to bashing the prequels for their bad acting and wonky CGI, but one thing they did have going was an interesting plot (for the most part) and decent consistency.

The Last Jedi has some decent acting and good special effects. And that's it. It takes what was an incredible Star Wars legacy and like Luke's lightsaber just throws it in the trash. It was such a painfully bad movie that we're all left wondering if the trilogy can possibly be redeemed in Episode IX.

Saw it last night and it was really, really good... and I tend to be a critic of some Christian movies because of the acting/storyline/special effects/etc. The opening battle scene was some of the best Roman warfare I've seen on screen since Gladiator. Also, performances from central actors were exceptional.

You have to go in realizing this follows a little more loosely to the Biblical accounts in some areas, but is pretty accurate in others. Most importantly, the Gospel was presented accurately: death and physical resurrection of Christ, salvation simply by believing in the risen Lord.

Strong points:

1. Clavius - amazing performance, believable character, adds to the story rather than detracting. 2. Jesus - finally a believable, 1st century Jewish Jesus! Strong performance. Up there with The Passion. His character exuded a believable grace and love. 3. Apostles - loved performances from Peter and Bartholomew. Peter was accurately portrayed as a rough fisherman with a rash temperament. 4. Jerusalem/Judea/Galilee - the settings were completely up to par with The Passion. 5. Cinematography - better than The Passion in a number of instances. 6. Resurrection - finally described and portrayed with power and with the Biblical Roman guard and seal! Ropes of the Roman seal EXPLODED, stone rolled/thrown away like a "leaf" as one guard describes it.

Weak points:

Only weak points IMHO are where they deviated from Scripture.

1. Jesus is shown ascending from the shores of Galilee, but in the Bible He made His final appearance on the Mount of Olives, from there He ascended 2. His ascension was witnessed by only the apostles, but in the Bible it was witnessed by over 500 disciples 3. As in most films about Christ the crucifixion is way too sanitized. In reality Christ was flayed with a Roman flagrum. If the Shroud of Turin is to be believed (and I think it is) He had literally HUNDREDS of stripes. The Passion is still the only portrayal that shows anything close to reality. But this was probably done on purpose to maintain a PG-13 rating. 4. Darkness - this is a common issues in all film portrayals of the gospels. The three hour period of darkness should not merely be "slightly overcast", it should be darkness as the Bible describes it. Extra-Biblical Roman accounts described it as so dark you could see the stars.

All-in-all, I really enjoyed it. Go see it!