REWIND REVIEW: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the Greatest Films Of All Time, as determined by my incredible spreadsheet, which is detailed and regularly updated here.

(PG) ★★★★★

Director: Irvin Kirschner.

Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Frank Oz, Peter Mayhew, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker.

"Join me... and together we'll watch every episode of Clone Wars."

Why is The Empire Strikes Back considered the best of the Star Wars films?

Movieweb says it has the best lightsaber duel of the series (really?), and points to the budding romance, the plot, the character development, and the plot twist. The Nerdstash cites the expansion of the universe, the score, the storyline juggling, the quotable dialogue, Darth Vader at his most menacing, the darkness, that ending, the romance and the character development. Reel Rundown mentioned all this, the pacing and more.

All this is true (except for the bit about the best lightsaber duel), but there's one thing that doesn't get highlighted enough in the discussion around Empire: emotion.

The late great Roger Ebert hit on it in 1997 when he noted that it's "because of the emotions stirred in Empire that the entire series takes on a mythic quality that resonates back to the first and ahead to the third". 

"This is the heart," Ebert wrote.

There are a couple of key emotional moments I noticed during my squillionth watching of Empire recently. I was watching it with my seven-year-old, who was on his second viewing, which helped me have fresh eyes on it, highlighting the difference between Empire and A New Hope. They're just little things, but given the billions of words that have been written about Empire over the years, they struck me as underappreciated yet significant things that haven't been written about enough.

Firstly, let's talk about the emotional impact of... Chewbacca. Check out this moment.

If that video doesn't work or gets deleted due to a copyright claim some day, I'm trying to show you the moment when the Rebel commanders on Hoth decide they have to close the shield doors for the night, despite Han and Luke still being lost out there in the icy dusk. As the doors close with a thunderous "doooom", Chewie howls like a dog on a full moon. It's primal, yet it's heartfelt. Chewie cares so much about Han, he howls, as if in pain. And in turn, we care. Take Chewie out of that scene and it has a scintilla of the emotional impact it would otherwise have.

Generally speaking, Empire gives Chewbacca a lot more depth. It's only little things - a surprise hug for Luke on Hoth, Chewie's concern and frustration at finding and then repairing a disassembled C-3PO on Cloud City, his efforts to take on Vader and his stormtroopers to save Han from being put in carbonite - but it speaks volumes. Chewie is a more well rounded character, and suddenly the world he inhabits feels richer, as do the relationships between everyone.

(I was going to gripe about the bit in The Force Awakens when Leia consoles Rey instead of Chewie after what happens to Han, but I'm going to internalise the rage and move on.)

Those emotions are even better illustrated by the white-hot sexual tension between Han and Leia in Empire. From her unwittingly incestuous kiss with Luke intended to inflame Han's jealousy, through to Han's "I know" retort to Leia's declaration of love, it's one of the most rewarding arcs of the movie. And that's saying something.

But when you get down to it, the other big key arc is all about emotion. The whole "No. I am your father" reveal, even before the prequels and sequels and all the rest existed, threw a new emotional light over the entirety of what had come before in Empire. The film instantly flips from being about a supervillain hunting down the kid who blew up his doomsday device and becomes a haunting tale of a father who reveals his true identity to his son in the hopes he will join the family business (except the family business is ruling the galaxy). The emotion of Empire peaks right as the film flips, revealing layers of heart, complexity, pathos, and inter-relationships we didn't even know existed until that point.

It might seem like a little thing, but it speaks to the differences between A New Hope and Empire. The former is intent on mythmaking and creating a kind of highly entertaining space opera never seen before in its time. The latter does that, but at a level of emotional intensity the first film could only dream of. 

Obviously the latter cannot exist without the former, and Empire has the benefit of standing on the shoulders of its giant predecessor. But whereas A New Hope's greatest triumphs are in its storytelling, its groundbreaking special FX, and its remarkable legacy, Empire has all that and one extra key ingredient - emotion.

A Haunting In Venice

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on September 21, 2023.

(M) ★★★½

Director: Kenneth Branagh.

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, Michelle Yeoh.

At any moment, someone was going to start either the Time Warp or the Macarena.

Kenneth Branagh is something of an enigma as a director. Even when he was known primarily as a Shakespearean adapter, he would bounce from one seemingly unconnected film to the next, shirking the idea of a style or particular approach so as to remain invisible as a director. Nothing has changed as his career has progressed. Sometimes he shifted gears with a disconcerting clunk that left the engine lying on the road, other times he took the wheel of a film like a Formula 1 driver - for every failure (Artemis Fowl, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), there has been an incredible, perhaps unpredictable success (Thor, Cinderella, Belfast). 

Now it seems, instead of diving back into The Bard between these varied projects, he picks up an Agatha Christie tome. A Haunting In Venice completes his trilogy of directing and starring in Christie adaptions, and while it may seem like Branagh is on familiar terrain again, this is unlike any of his previous Poirot outings, or indeed anything in his back catalogue.

Taking place on a stormy night in a Venetian palazzo, 11 people have gathered for a séance. But before the night is out, the number of ghosts in the building will increase thanks to a murderous guest among the party. And it's up to the famed Belgian detective to emerge from retirement and save the day.

Unlike Branagh's past Poirot films Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile, A Haunting In Venice deviates dramatically from its source. Ostensibly taken from Christie's 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party, the film bears little resemblance to the book, yet has all the trademark plotting of Agatha Christie, aped to perfection by screenwriter Michael Green, who did a fine job on ...Orient Express and ...Nile. 

But where the story feels like its predecessors, the look and style of the film do not. Branagh leans into the ghostly elements to summon a psychological thriller that's a world away from the train- and boat-bound whodunnits of before. This is a classic horror, filled with Dutch angles and brooding darkness. It's more unsettling than scary though, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Branagh overdoes it a bit though. There are long stretches where every shot is framed oddly or tilted or characters are a little too close to the lens. Yes, it's unnerving, but the effect becomes tiresome as opposed to cumulative. This repetition adds to the bizarre sensation that the film is longer than his previous Poirot outings, when in fact it is the shortest of the trilogy.

Thankfully the mystery is a good one, that unravels with care, even though the effects of the storm that keeps everyone confined to the palazzo for the night are barely invisible the day after. Coupled with the pacing, these are the only real downsides. 

Once again, Branagh has assembled a cracking cast, led by himself as the magnetic but increasingly broken Poirot. The pick of the bunch are Yeoh as a medium who may or may not be the real deal, Dornan as a doctor with PTSD, Fey as a long-time writer friend of Poirot's, Reilly as a grieving opera singer, and the precocious Hill as a disturbingly grown-up child.

It's doubtful Branagh's Poirot trilogy will be remembered in years to come with the same passion as, say, Rian Johnson's similarly arranged Knives Out films, primarily because they don't crackle with the same energy or eccentricity. But they are fun diversions no less, and though A Haunting In Venice is more grim than grin, it's a well made throwback to a time when whodunnits could also make the hairs on the back of our necks stand up.