Movie Review: The Life Of Chuck (2024)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Mike Flanagan  

Starring: Tim Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Mark Hamill, Jacob Tremblay  

Running Time: 111 minutes  

Synopsis: The plot unfolds in reverse chronological order, starting with Chapter Three. School teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) experience the end of the world, but with weird billboards and posters proclaiming "Charles Krantz: 39 Great Years!". In Chapter Two, Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) is an accountant attending a conference. He encounters a drummer busker and dances up a storm, joined by the recently dumped Janice (Annalise Basso). In Chapter One, Chuck is an orphaned boy being raised by his grandparents Sarah and Albie (Mia Sara and Mark Hamill). Sarah teaches him to love dancing, while Albie encourages Chuck to pursue accounting as a career.

What Works Well: Adapting a Stephen King short story, writer and director Mike Flanagan unfurls a simple narrative with a deep commitment to the essence of being human. Chuck's whimsical journey sparkles with insights, sometimes subtle, at other times profound, linking one (and every) individual with the greater universe. Inspired by Carl Sagan's Cosmic Calendar and Walt Whitman's I contain multitudes, Chuck is nobody important and everybody who has ever lived, loved, lamented, and experienced unexpected moments of sublime perfection on the uncertain path to a singular certainty.

What Does Not Work As Well: The middle chapter could have been longer beyond the centrepiece dance sequence, and the childhood chapter may have benefitted from a proportionate trim.

Key Quote:

Chuck: I will live my life until my life runs out.

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Movie Review: The Big Red One (1980)

A soldier's eye view of World War Two, The Big Red One captures the insane logic of front-line combat with unblinking clarity.

In a prologue set at the end of the first World War, a private (Lee Marvin) lost in the front line mists uses his knife to kill a babbling German soldier. He later learns the war ended four hours prior.

It's November 1942, and now the Sergeant leads a squad of infantrymen as part of the famed "Big Red One" (the First Infantry Division), landing on the beaches of North Africa. The men include Privates Griff (Mark Hamill), Zab (Robert Carradine), Vinci (Bobby Di Cicco) and Ward (Johnson). A chaotic initial encounter with Vichy French soldiers is followed by the squad being literally run over at Kasserine Pass.

Under the Sergeant's quiet leadership the four men grow from raw recruits to experienced survivors, while a succession of replacement soldiers come and go. Griff always finds it difficult to shoot anyone while Zab collects plenty of material for his book, as the men take part in the Sicily campaign, followed by the D-Day landings, the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of a concentration camp. Along the way they encounter the range of horrors and absurdities inherent in war.

A long-standing passion project for writer and director Samuel Fuller, The Big Red One is inspired by his real-life experiences with the First Infantry Division during the war. Adding further authenticity, star Lee Marvin also served in the Pacific Theater with the Marines. The film salutes the foot soldiers doing the dirty work of combat, with a focus on their absolute ordinariness. A relatively low-budget effort with limited attention to detail, the film is focused and gritty, but without expansive set-pieces or blood-soaked brutality.

The four men under the Sergeant's tutelage never lose a sense of fatalistic cynicism, combined with a ready ability to banter and poke each other. The longer they survive and others don't, the more they attain the surety of a job that needs to be done, another battle to grind through on the way to ending a seemingly endless conflict.

The Sergeant himself is an observant man of few words, leading by example and prompting action at key moments. His mere grizzled presence is enough to inspire, and while the men pull the Sergeant into their repartee, he commands instant respect when needed.

The film's episodic structure ensures a constant flow of energy. Fuller briskly hops from one set-piece to another with sharp editing and no looking back. Generals, politicians and broader strategic contexts have no place in this world. The men often have no real idea where they are or why they are there. They just respond to the next tactical objective, taking out any Germans they encounter and improvising an approximation of survival.

The best episodes reach out and touch war's ridiculous incongruities. The squad bring life to a field of death familiar to the Sergeant, helping a pregnant woman deliver inside a tank. An impromptu food and wine feast breaks out while a young local boy, who helped locate an enemy tank, mourns his decomposing mother. And war mixes with madness, literally, when the Sergeant and his men liberate a monastery being used as a refuge for mental patients, with a lethal resistance fighter pretending to be an inmate. The climax at the concentration camp is the final growing-up lesson for young men defeating tyranny.

The Big Red One recreates the front lines as a surreal experience where life, death, humour, camaraderie and work objectives still exist, but are contorted into a magnificently warped mosaic.



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The Movies Of Mark Hamill

All movies starring Mark Hamill and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Star Wars (1977)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

The Big Red One (1980)

The Return Of The Jedi (1983)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

The Life Of Chuck (2024)

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Movie Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

The eighth episode in the original Star Wars saga and the second in the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi is a magnificent achievement, brilliantly combining the series' familiar elements with original ingredients and powerful plot developments.

Picking up events immediately after The Force Awakens, the resistance fighters led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) are routed, and the evil forces of the First Order under the command of General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) are moving in for the final kill. Ace resistance pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac) leads a daring bombing counterattack but incurs heavy losses.

Meanwhile Force-sensitive scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) track down the legendary Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), now the last known Jedi, on a remote planet. Rey pleads with Luke to come to the rescue of the resistance. He refuses, having still not come to terms with failing to prevent his nephew Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) from turning to the dark side under Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). Rey starts to experience Force-enabled face-to-face communications with Kylo, and they try to influence each other towards opposite sides of the Force.

Leia is severely wounded in battle, and Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) takes over command but immediately clashes with the hot headed Poe. With Rey and Kylo having an in-person audience with Snoke, former stormtrooper turned rebel Finn (John Boyega) and resistance maintenance worker Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) team up for a mission to secure the services of a hacker who can help the remaining resistance ships escape. Their search yields the services of the seemingly capable DJ (Benicio del Toro), but things are about to get much worse for the decimated rebel army.

After the relatively disappointing warmed-over rehash offered by The Force Awakens, Rian Johnson takes over as writer and director and delivers a spectacular boost to the franchise. The Last Jedi is best described as fearless, introducing new Force capabilities, one of the best lightsaber battles in the series within Snoke's inner sanctuary, a stunning landing pad for one essential arc, stirring acts of bravery and sacrifice, and a marvellously tense Force-enabled connection between Rey and Kylo, pregnant with possibilities.

And nothing is taken away from the action set-pieces, here delivered with a searing creativity and clarity of execution. Johnson pushes away from the familiar and finds new showdowns and genuinely thrilling battles, including Poe's bombing raid; the First Order all but annihilating the rebel fleet; a slow but existential space chase; and a finale at a previously abandoned resistance base that features several epic confrontations.

The narrative is pushed forward with Luke and Kylo both offering versions of where it all went wrong, and Luke forced to define his true legacy in unexpected but faultless fashion. Rey makes progress in coming to terms with her origins and role in the unyielding struggle between good and evil. Gradually Poe and Finn unite with Rey at the centre of the story, and now they are joined by the unlikely and disguised heroism of Rose.

The Last Jedi is not without its faults. The running time of 152 minutes is excessive, Finn and Rose's side quest to the casino planet a particular bloat culprit, and some of the multicultural preachiness is flagrant. But Johnson also introduces a mean streak of humour to combat the slow parts. The noisy robot BB-8 and the perpetually worried Porg furry creatures are deployed in just the right doses, and several other characters and creations make timely contributions.

Despite the large cast, a few performances do stand out. Adam Driver emerges as a magnetic presence, the uncertainty within him bursting out in prodigious directions. Daisy Ridley and Benicio del Toro are the other notable cast members, Ridley mixing the perilous unknowns of Rey's ancestry with grim determination, del Toro luxuriating in DJ's confidence as an enigmatic man who can code break his way out of any situation.

With John Williams contributing another iteration of cinema's most beloved music score, The Last Jedi travels at lightspeed to claim a place as one of the most satisfying entries in the legendary series.

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Movie Review: Star Wars Episode VI - The Return of the Jedi (1983)

And so the saga comes to an end, with a non-stop parade of action that features a memorable tri-headed climax.

On the planet Endor, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) team up with a group of cuddly but strong-willed Ewoks (smallish bear-like creatures perfect for toy merchandising) to storm an Empire station powering the defensive shield of the latest version of the Death Star.

On the Death Star itself, Luke (Mark Hamill) engages with his Dad, Darth Vader, in an epic light saber battle, as well as a battle of competing wills overseen by the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid): Luke wants to draw Vader back to the positive side of the Force, while Vader wants Luke to join him on the Dark Side to jointly govern the galaxy as a father-and-son combo.

And finally, out in space, Lando Carlissian (Billy Dee Williams) and Chewbacca on board the Millennium Falcon lead a group of rebel fighters in their assault on the Death Star. Carlissian needs Solo to de-activitate the shield station on Endor before he can launch his final assault, and also needs Luke to end his duel and clear out of the Death Star before it is blown up into so much space dust.

It all ends well for the good guys, of course, but credit to Director Richard Marquand for effectively converting the entire second half of the movie into one long, breathless climax, and kudos also to writers George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan for dreaming up a satisfying ending to a grand series.

Return of the Jedi does also unfortunately include a long-winded opening where Leia, Luke and Carlissian save the carbonated Han from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt. This sequence is way too long - the only good thing thing about it is Carrie Fisher in that amazing golden metallic bikini - and there are way too many creatures in rubber costumes hanging out in Jabba's cave. In contrast, when Solo resumes his childishly-written romance with Leia, it is a relief.

There is also time for Luke to pay another visit to the planet Dagobah where Yoda finally decides that he is way too old to remain among the living; and for Luke and Leia to realize that they are brother and sister, clearing the way for Han to win Leia's heart.

At the end of a grand epic, Return of the Jedi is a well-executed exclamation mark.

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Movie Review: Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Three years after Star Wars stunned the world of movie-making, the first sequel arrived, and George Lucas shocked everyone again by announcing The Empire Strikes Back as "Episode V". He revealed his vision for a nine-part epic, with the original Star Wars now re-named "Episode IV" and marking the beginning of just the middle trilogy.

The Empire Strikes Back itself is interesting in several respects. Lucas left the screenwriting duties to Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, and brought in Irvin Kershner as Director. Lucas focused his efforts on developing the special effects, further pushing the boundaries of visual achievement and again raising the benchmark of expectation.

The Empire Strikes Back is also different in not offering any sort of climactic grand action finale. The film instead has the essential but unglamorous task of developing its characters and filling in concepts that were only outlined in the original movie.

Thus a large part of Empire is occupied with Luke traveling to the planet Dagobah to meet the ancient Jedi Master Yoda and embark on his training as a Jedi. Through the slow and purposeful training scenes, both Luke and the viewer get to know a lot more about the Force and the ways of the Jedi. These scenes also serve as Luke's transition into adulthood and his understanding of the world and his role in it.

Meanwhile, Princess Leia and Han Solo find time to develop a clunky romance based on horribly cheesy dialogue as the rebels are routed out of their hideout on the icy planet Hoth. Thankfully Leia and Han soon need to focus on more important matters as they fall into the clutches of Darth Vader in Cloud City, a mining planet run by Lando Calrissian, an old shifty acquaintance of Solo.

Han ends up getting the worst of Calrissian's double-cross, while the closest thing that passes for a climax is a Luke and Darth Vader light saber duel that ends in a relative stalemate, notwithstanding Luke losing an arm, but not before a revelation that represents one of the more memorable and iconic moments in movie history.

Mark Hamill as the more mature and confident Luke does well and carries the main weight of Empire, while Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher need to contend with plastic lines and the worst of cliches as they fall in love based on...nothing much, really.

Visually, Lucas delivers the AT-AT Walkers as a stunning tank-as-massive-camel weapon for the Empire in the battle on Hoth, and then tops himself with the wire-trip trick that the rebels use to fell the lethal metal monsters. The AT-ATs quickly joined the long list of striking Star Wars symbols instantly recognizable beyond the movie world.

The Empire Strikes Back does not deliver the thrills of some of the other entries in the Star Wars saga, and it very much feels like the middle of the story with no sharp edges at either end, but it does fulfill its mission in providing significant depth to the Star Wars galaxy and its inhabitants.







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Movie Review: Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

In 1977, George Lucas reinvented all the rules of movie-making, relaunched the special effects industry, re-calibrated audience expectations and re-imagined the potential for film profitability.

Star Wars, as it was simply known upon its release, is one of those rare films that stands as a gigantic landmark in the history of cinema.

In terms of movie franchises, science fiction, special effects, sprawling epic stories, and movie merchandising, there are two eras: before Star Wars, and after Star Wars.

Star Wars turned out to be the fourth episode in what would become a multi-part movie series that spanned decades, and generated countless books, video games, TV series, and an entire collectible toy sub-industry. Star Wars also launched the career of Harrison Ford, who went on to become one of the biggest Hollywood stars, and re-ignited interest in space-related movies and television series.

The impact on culture was to be equally deep and long-lasting. The Force, warp-speed, holograms, Jedi Knights, the Death Star, Darth Vader, R2-D2, C-3PO, light sabres, and the term "Star Wars" itself all became integrated into everyday life and far transcended their humble movie origins.

The success of Star Wars is rooted in the creation of a vast, original, and complex galaxy (both figurative and literal), but weaving onto it a simple story of a farm-boy who must rise to fulfill his destiny in a strange world.

The farm-boy is of course Luke Skywalker, who stumbles onto a holographic message hidden within the robot R2-D2 by Princess Leia. The Princess is aiding the fledgling rebellion against the evil Empire, and she needs the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke soon finds Obi-Wan, and they team up with the smuggler Han Solo and his side-kick Chewbacca, a Wookiee, to rescue the Princess, who is in the clutches of Darth Vader.

Luke and Han free Leia while Vader duels with Obi-Wan. Although Vader wins the light sabre battle, Obi-Wan becomes "one with the Force" and gains the ability to help Luke from the beyond. And help will be needed as the rebels and Luke attack the fearsome Death Star in an epic space battle.

In addition to spectacular visual and sound effects and the majestic John Williams music score, Star Wars included several scenes of astounding originality that became instant movie classics. Among them the cantina scene on the planet Tatooine, the garbage compactor trap, the Millennium Falcon jumping to warp-speed, and the final attack on the Death Star.

And in the character of Darth Vader, Star Wars introduced one of the most fearsome and menacing movie villains, and also one of the most famous and loved film icons.

In front of the screen, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Mark Hamill as Luke and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia are all watchable and engaging, and they benefit from relatively sharp and witty dialogue that Lucas would unfortunately not match again in future entries. Star Wars is helped enormously by the sheer presence of Sir Alec Guinness who sparkles as Obi-Wan Kenobi and lends substantial weight to the story and the unfolding action.

Star Wars only gets better with age, and now that future parts of the story have been told, it shines ever more brightly as the foundational chapter in the most remarkable space epic ever put to film.

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