Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Nice as it is to see C-3PO and R2D2, and a decided treat to again try to decipher Chewy’s affable [or agonized] growl/bray, not to mention Frank Oz as the voice of sage Yoda, and the great Carrie Fisher -- harder to identify now by Luke Skywalker because, as she impishly notes to a much older, more disheveled, out of shape Luke Skywalker, “I know: I changed my hairstyle…!”  It’s  close to the sole identifiable pleasures of this latest incarnation of Lucasfilm’s endless SW saga. 

The Resistance is still at war with The First Order across the galaxy, as young Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley) trains under the tutelage of hermit Skywalker, using the puissant tools of the Jedi trade.

Because the last two films were directed by two different directors, each with his own ‘vision,’ the Rian Johnson film here is itself a pastiche parallel to the mess that is Luke.

While we like Adam Driver, as moody, conflicted Kylo Ren, he is not permitted to go the distance, and the script pulls him back annoyingly when the audience would prefer him to let loose. He cannot interact romantically with Rey. Similarly, when one character, Finn (John Boyega) is going full tilt toward the end-of-safety cannon, we know the logic of such events and velocity  would dictate he die in the inferno, sacrificing himself for the good of the Resistance Force. But he does not die.

Battles in midair or mid-cyberscape have no identifiable way to tell which blasters are the bad guys, which the good.

We do, however, mourn the constant explosion and extermination one by one of the good guys in successive bursts of CGI.

The villains again speak with splendid English accents, while the protagonists sloven along in not very exalting American. But that is already a meme in most sock-‘em-rock ‘em flicks for decades. A female Jedi, Daisy Ridley, is a nice change of course, and she acquits herself well. Though without the necessity gravitas, somehow. Laura Dern, Benicio del Toro, Lupita Nyong’o and a first-rate Andy Serkis as Snoke feature alongside Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley and Ms. Fisher.

More credit in a sense should go to the light sabers than to any one character.

Cue commercial tie-in kid spinoffs.

And there’s a touch of humor here and there. But not enough. Unless you have a PhD in the theology of Star Wars, you just let the stuff roll over you without cudgeling the brain to straighten out the muddle of a script.

At 2½ hours, and enormous effort and samoleans expended on Gee Whiz stuff, it pains one to just yawn and say So what? Nothing is quite memorable.

Fact is, the falloff in attendance after initial mega-millions is no accident. After the film ends, one rushes out to rid one’s teeth of the crescent-dregs of popcorn consumed long hours earlier,

Wonder

While the book of the same name by Raquel Jaramilio [RJ] Palacio featured a child with a severe craniofacial deformity, played by confident Jacob Tremblay, the film clears up the brave child, making him  winsome as well as  clever as hell.

Rare today, this is a film that parents can take their children to. It confers a top-of-the-fold message: Accept others for their insides, not the cover, 

It also features the luminous Julia Roberts, as the boy, Auggie’s, devoted and deeply compassionate mother -- she is dowdified to play Mom, of course. Bonus: the effervescent and always brimming Owen Wilson, house-in-the-forest crooked nose and floppy hair always winning fans and indulgent smiles, plays the father. Both seem parenthetical (pun intended) but each supplies warmth and humor.

No bad words, naughty scenes or otherwise un-kidlike material.