There's a moment quite early on in Star Wars: The Last Jedi that concisely sums up writer/director Rian Johnson's approach to his entry in this new trilogy. After an opening space battle establishes the stakes of the main plot, we cut to where we left Rey at the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, still standing in front of Luke Skywalker with her arm outstretched, offering him his father's lightsaber. He slowly reaches forward, gently takes it from her... and throws it straight over his shoulder and off a cliff. Like Luke, Star Wars: The Last Jedi simply isn't interested in the plot threads left hanging by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, nor is does it care for what direction you thought the franchise might take - and it's all the better for it.
What we have here is what many wanted Star Wars: The Force Awakens to be - not a movie that panders to the characters and iconography of the original trilogy but one that isn't afraid to take bold creative risks with them, and while that's certain to anger the more possessive Star Wars fans, it also results in an original, imaginative and genuinely exciting film.
It might be part of an enormous blockbuster franchise, but it's also Rian Johnson's film through and through, driven by the kind of creative vision and thematic intent that's rarely seen in films of this size, and while that doesn't stop Star Wars: The Last Jedi from having problems, it does go a long way towards ensuring that those problems ultimately do very little to harm the overall experience. It's the perfect example of a film being greater than the sum of its parts, a movie in which even its weakest aspects still have something important to offer thanks to the way that they add to the overall picture. Take, for example, the most obviously flawed section of the film which sees Finn and new character Rose Tico travel to a wealthy casino planet - it might feel a touch perfunctory in the moment, but it doesn't take long before you understand how well it ties into and informs the ideas that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is interested in.
Which means that while it might be just a little rough around the edges (particularly in its first half), you could never accuse Star Wars: The Last Jedi of being a mess - it's simply too well-written, offering too cohesive and compelling an exploration of its themes and characters, for that to be a fair criticism.
But that's only half of what makes it such a great movie - it's also littered with some of the best moments, cinematography, action scenes and character arcs that a Star Wars film has ever contained. It's not just the story that benefits from what looks like a huge amount of creative freedom - it's the film-making too, and while Star Wars: The Last Jedi is still recognisably a Star Wars movie, it's also one that seems more willing to push at the boundaries of the "house style" that Star Wars is known for. The trademark screen-wipes are rarer and less obvious, the score far less reliant on the pieces of music we already recognise, which when added to Rian Johnson taking inspiration from a wide variety of sources makes Star Wars: The Last Jedi look (and more importantly, feel) every bit as new and different as this story deserves.
So I'll say it - Star Wars: The Last Jedi is one of my new favourite Star Wars films, and one of the best new entries to the Star Wars franchise. What Rian Johnson has delivered here is a truly special piece of blockbuster entertainment, and I hope that he'll be a driving force in wherever Star Wars ends up going after this. Will J.J Abrams be able to conclude this trilogy in a satisfying way? I doubt it, to be honest - but even if he can't, at least we'll always have Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Set in the early 2000's, Spotlight follows a team of investigative journalists working for the Boston Globe as they look into claims that a local Cardinal knew that a priest was committing child molestation and did nothing to stop it. Spurred on by the newspapers new editor, the team soon find out that the problem is much bigger than they initially suspected, and before long they are looking for hard evidence that many cases of abuse have been covered up by the Catholic Church, which has then simply reassigned abusive priests to other parishes where they can continue to abuse children.
It's one of the best "based on real life" stories I've ever seen, genuinely fascinating as it continues to develop and you learn more about the scale of the cover-up in question. Some very cursory research I have done indicates that the story in Spotlight is accurate to the way that it happened in real life. Nothing feels overly dramatised or unbelievable, the entire film simply moves forward slowly and methodically until the article is published. There is no big twist, no ridiculous melodrama, no romantic sub-plot - Spotlight simply tells the story as it happens, and in my opinion is all the better for it.
It is worth mentioning how good the main cast of Spotlight are though, which includes Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery and Liev Schreiber as the journalists and editors working for the Boston Globe, all based on real people. While Ruffalo and Keaton are both giving more obviously interesting performances (by which I mean taking on identifiable mannerisms and each having scenes in which their characters really get to display strong emotions), Tucci instead gives a very understated performance as lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, one that is focused on selling the reality of the situation and the resigned aspect of the character. I've been a fan of Tucci for some years now, and I don't think that is going to change any time soon - he simply never disappoints, and once again Spotlight proves how good he is in even the smallest of roles.
Spotlight may not be the most visually impressive or intensely thrilling film of all time, but that isn't what it is trying to be. Instead, it tells an interesting story with the use of some good performances, and although it may rely a little too heavily on the strength of that story it never loses its sense of purpose, and as such it carries us through with ease.
