Rogue One

They did it again. Lucasfilm gave us sprinklings of our favorite characters and boldly introduced new ones that were just as fun to watch--again. In this year's Rogue One, the newest in the Star Wars franchise, there is no Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, no Rey or Obi-Wan Kenobi. No Yoda and no BB-8. Rogue One, the first theatrical release of a Star Wars film outside of the nine canonical chapters of George Lucas' famous story, is a story that really didn't need to be told, and yet it's the very best one since 1983.

But what's even more impressive is that the team behind the movie may have given us a boatload of new characters, but they also have taken us back to a story we basically thought was covered by now. Virtually every human alive has seen the first Star Wars film from 1977, and many fans watch the animated series Rebels about the birth of the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire. The gist of this film's plot is that it details the Rebels' heist of the plans for the Death Star, the massive planet-destroying space station that has one fatal flaw. Rogue One is essentially the story behind the steal, and it makes Star Wars feel fresh.

Rogue One, directed by Garreth Edwards, is the first Star Wars movie to have really understood that there is weight behind that second word. This is a war movie, and at times it almost feels like it's channeling Saving Private Ryan. Like in war, it is challenging to easily define so-called "good guys" and "bad guys." The Empire and its leaders are still the villain here, but there are examples of good. Madds Mikkelsen plays an engineer forced to build the Death Star; it is he who creates the weakness of the weapon and informs his daughter, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), who must lead a group of guerrillas to steal the plans. The person who delivers that message to Jyn is an Imperial pilot named Bodhi (Riz Ahmed) who defected. On the Rebel Alliance side, there are pragmatists and cautionary figures, but there are also radicals and freedom fighters who could easily be called terrorists. Revolutions are not always black and white.

It came as a surprise to many, including me, that Mikkelsen, the villain in a host of films and shows, would not be the bad guy here. Instead, that role, Orson Krennic, the Director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Empire, is played by Ben Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn has never given a bad performance, but this one might be my favorite of his. Dressed in a white cape and uniform, he's childish, arrogant, cruel, blood-thirsty, and a risk taker. His opening dialogue, where he taunts Galen Erso (Mikkelsen) into coming back to finish the Death Star, is just about perfect.

Edwards et al have gathered a wonderful cast from all over the world: Mendelsohn is Australian and Mikkelsen is Danish. Jones and Riz Ahmed are Brits. Genevieve O'Reilly is Irish. Diego Luna, who plays a CIA-like agent willing to assassinate if ordered, is Mexican. Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen, who play best friends fighting the Empire, are Asian. Alan Tudyk, whose comedic performance as the droid K-2SO is my favorite, is American, and many of the other Americans in the cast--Forest Whitaker, Jimmy Smits, and James Earl Jones--are people of color, proving yet again that Disney, unlike most of Hollywood, is committed to diversity.

Jyn is a small-r rebel, one who despite being raised by the radical fighter Saw Gerrera (a character who first appeared in the animated series The Clone Wars and who is played here by Whitaker), has no allegiance to the Rebellion because it has only brought her pain. But whether she likes it or not, she is caught up in the fight and resistance. Jyn leads Bodhi, Cassian (Luna), Chirrut (Yen), and Baze (Wen), and they all make "ten men look like a hundred" as they race across the galaxy in an attempt to stop the Empire.

In many respects, this feels like as much of a Star Wars family reunion as The Force Awakens was last year. Smits reprises his role from the prequel trilogy as Bail Organa, the senator fighting the Empire behind the scenes and the step-father of Leia. O'Reilly plays Mon Mothma, a character who first appeared in 1983's Return of the Jedi played by Caroline Blakiston and whose performance by O'Reilly in 2005's Revenge of the Sith was cut for time. Other familiar characters appear and they won't be mentioned in this review, but there is one I will definitely discuss since we all knew going into the movie that he would be back: Darth Vader. I won't elaborate, but remember how disappointed you were in 2005 when Jones basically only appeared to yell "Noooooo!" for five seconds and that was basically it? You surely will not be disappointed this time.

Edwards and his crew channel what worked with last year's Star Wars film and avoid what didn't. In terms of visuals, the team has spared no expensive with their $200 million budget, giving us effects that are more of The Force Awakens and less Attack of the Clones. This may in fact be the most visually incredible Star Wars film yet. And in terms of mood and story, while there are obnoxious little references to the films of the past, nostalgia is not oozing out like it was in The Force Awakens. Rogue One, despite it being one of the darker elements of the franchise, is one of the more hopeful, and it's reassuring to know that in this era of a complete lack of hope with the state of the world, when democracy is trampled on and thrown out the window by those with hatred in their hearts, it's nice to know that Star Wars understands the need for good people to resist and push back. It does so all the while providing so much fun, as Star Wars often does.

But I must end with a heavy heart as I write this review, two days after watching the film and only hours after discovering the death of the beloved Carrie Fisher, our princess, our general, our icon. In a year that has also taken away from us Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman, Prince, and many, many others, what a cruel way to end a disastrous, dismal, no-good, very bad year. How could I end simply by saying she will be missed? That goes without saying. Like many, I'm shocked, I'm angry, I'm sad. Perhaps her space brother and co-star put it best: no words.

  

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Southside With You

Things are awkward on their first date, to say the least. Him liking pie and her preference for ice cream doesn't help, and she won't let him pay for her turkey-on-rye sandwich. She is his supervisor, and is more than cognizant of how this might look to her colleagues. The young woman on the date, Michelle, insists early on to her mother that this is not a date. "Thought you said he was just another smooth-talkin' brother," her mother teases.

That smooth-talkin' brother is a young man named Barack Obama (played here by Patrick Sawyers), just over twenty years before he would become the most powerful man on the planet. We first see him smoking a cigarette, the cool white fedora from his early-year photographs just behind him. Barack may drive a car with a partly rusted floor, but he's confident, or probably cocky, as even his modern-day defenders begrudgingly admit. Barack is going to pick up Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) for what will become their first date, probably the most well-known first date of any First Couple.

One could easily make the argument that if this movie weren't about the Obamas, it would be far less interesting (or marketable). Just as Boyhood was special only because it was filmed over twelve years, Southside With You only works when we're reminded that this is the current First Couple we're watching. Part of the flaw of this movie is the second-rate screenplay that seems more like a mediocre theater playwriting dissertation. The conversations are almost predictable, covering topics ranging from God, Black American art, and Stevie Wonder. But I will at least concede that there was a line in the film I found humorous: a woman scolding someone by telling them, "Watch your mouth--your ass in church."

The church is where we see Obama the community organizer, an exceptional line of work that has often been mocked by people with only half a brain. "No is just a word," he tells the hopeless, members of a community struggling to find funding. And the opposite of no, he says, is on, as in carry on. Barack Obama is the closest thing this nation has ever had to having a Preacher in Chief. It's probably the film's best scene, though it tiptoes towards cliches. It's at least the only moment where Sawyers actually sounds like Barack Obama, a little too professorial, as Michelle tells him, but it's a reminder that Obama has been one of the best orators to have occupied the White House. A motivator, a coach, a pragmatist, a patriot.

It's in this scene where Sawyers shines the most. Sawyers has had bit parts in major movies like Zero Dark Thirty, but here in his first starring role, the guy looks like Obama, talks like Obama, even shakes hands like Obama. The movie may have sub par dialogue, but it at least recognizes that Barack, in the story at least, probably knew that he likely was going to speak at this community meeting, and that it might just be pretty impressive to show off to his supervisor (a supervisor he is courting). But it's a success nonetheless. Things from there become more intimate as Michelle agrees to drinks and teasingly asks him if he prefers white or black women. 

From there they go to see the exceptional Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee, the movie that was shunned by the Oscars in 1990. (They instead rewarded what they thought was a superior film about race relations called Driving Miss Daisy.) Watching Southside With You, I hadn't really thought of just how pertinent the climactic scene of Lee's most famous film--of white police officers choking a black man to death--is to today's harrowing times. Afterwards the two are a bit shaken. Part of this is because they've bumped into their (white) boss. The boss doesn't seem to care that they're on a date, but he also doesn't seem to think that it might be awkward telling two black people that he couldn't understand why the characters in Do the Right Thing were reacting the way they were during the riot.

Aside from that, there are hardly any politics in this film, and that's probably how it should be. This film may be firmly planted in the romance genre, but how can one not think of politics when its two main characters are the current President and First Lady? Because this is a romance film that follows the romance film rules, the movie might be more appreciated in a few decades. But for now, despite both Barack and Michelle Obama's relative popularity, close to half of the American public would probably roll their eyes at this at best and shun and shout about it at worst. The latter half would react that way due to reasons that have nothing to do with the film itself.

Full disclosure: I'm in the former group. My affection for the Obamas--him for his undeniable success (4% unemployment rate, millions more insured, carbon emission reductions of 12%, the death of Bin Laden, to name just a few) and her for hers (her advocacy for children's nutrition and healthy habits and raising awareness of girls' education around the world, in particular), and both of their charm, grace, and kindness makes me like (or at least tolerate) this movie.

But yeah, I get it. Lots of people hate the Obamas. A certain West Virginia government official recently claimed that Michelle is an "ape in heels." A series of questions kept popping into my head as I watched Southside With You: How would the right, many of whom use racist terms for the Obamas, react if Barack Obama had five children with three different wives and admitted to sexually assaulting women? How would the media react if Obama said out loud that John McCain was a war hero only because he was captured, and that he liked people "who weren't captured?" If Obama lost to McCain or Mitt Romney by over three million votes but became president anyway because of the Electoral College, would the alt-right, the KKK, white nationalists, the Tea Party, Vladimir Putin, talk radio, FOX News, and Republicans go quietly into the night? Obama is not the monster his successor is, so I can't imagine there being a Manhattan With You about Second-Place Donald and any one of his wives (or mistresses), although if there would be one, Steve Bannon would undoubtedly produce it.

Back to the movie. It's okay. Nothing grand, nothing great. Not one of the year's best. It's pleasant, undoubtedly, and if you're not angered by who its characters are, you'll likely be okay with it. It's my understanding that the actual Obamas have not yet seen Southside With You, but if they are in for a movie, it might make for a nice date night.

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