2007 #82a
Irvin Kershner | 122 mins | DVD | U / PG
Irvin Kershner | 122 mins | DVD | U / PG
Little here is visually different from the ’97 Special Edition. Cloud City benefits from the CGI windows and lighting it was given back then, though the views look as fake as ever. The big change comes in dubbing both Boba Fett and the Emperor with appropriate actors from the prequel trilogy (as well as a few other minor audio tweaks).
Other than shunning the poor original actors in such a way, Empire is much the same as ever. Widely held as the best in the series, of course, which is not something I’d dispute. The 7th best movie ever made* though? Possibly a bit of a stretch.
My thoughts on the Star Wars saga as a whole — including more detail on The Empire Strikes Back — can be read here.
* Eight years on, it’s fallen to 12th.
Much criticism has been made of Lucas deciding to modify the original trilogy for the 1997 re-release, and then further for the 2004 DVD release. It’s not necessarily unjustified, but it is sometimes picky. If Han shooting first bothered you, you may be a little pleased to know they now shoot at the same time.
The main problem here lies in trying to condense a 600+ page novel into a bit over two hours. While the book feels padded, watching the film it becomes apparent that this actually builds mystery and suspense, most of which is lost in what feels like a series of extended montages that create an abridged version of the book. The direction is stylish and there are still some neat action sequences, but it lacks much of the fun or flowing coherence of the previous two entries.
Gentle, silly humour abound in this comedy, the third in the Road to… series. If you remember those plays that Morecambe & Wise used to do you’ll have a fair idea what this feels like, although with a couple of added musical numbers (and pretty good ones at that). It’s not ‘great cinema’ and it won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it makes for a light, fun way to spend not much more than an hour.
CGI movies are far too common these days, meaning that the quality is dropping (demonstrated by the fact that the number produced has increased massively but the number of Oscar nominations in that category has remained at three).
An adaptation of the first in Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling series of Alex Rider novels. It does a good job of translating the book, aided by an extensive cast of recognisable Brits (and some Yanks) and some entertaining action sequences.
Slowly paced and beautifully photographed, this is about as far from Disney’s telling of the story (in 
While it might not be in quite the same league as 
Almost the flip-side of 
100Films.co.uk 