THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) ** More of a spectacle than a film. The sets and costumes are great, the spaceships still have really cool tail lights, and there are all kinds of weird animals running around, but...I don't know how George Lucas allowed the controls to get in the hands of a different director. The momentum is gone, the Force is in remission, as depicted, on every level. I don't know if there's a single scene that's not either too long or too short. The early militaristic nonsense lacks vitality to the extent that it leaves room to begin questioning the entire premise: if Mark Hamill is such a big deal to the revolution, as opposed to the inconsequential whiner that he appears to be, why do they have him wandering around a snowscape on a camel looking for meteors? Who put the idiotic Princess Leia in charge of the revolution, anyway? She's obviously a fool, so what are the rest of them, moronic monarchists? How can Harrison Ford possibly think that it will be more difficult for oganized crime to detect him out on the loose, rather than submerged in an underground revolutionary movement? All of these questions pale, of course, compared to what could possibly attract Hamill or Ford to Carrie Fisher. Well, other than she's apparently the only female around. But still, man, some things just aren't worth it. Look what it's done to Ford, he's totally fallen into being a cartoon of the Han Solo character, just biding time and waiting for his next big smile & quip sequence. Billy Dee Williams adds some class to the proceedings, but he uncharacteristically stumbles over some of his lines, the ones with like fifty words per sentence that he's supposed to casually spout as he's striding through the casino planet. Who talks like that? When Star Wars concluded in the most obvious fit of sequel baiting in the history of Hollywood, it felt like a promise. When this one concludes on a less enthusiastic, but equally ambiguous, note, it's starting to feel a little more like a threat.
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