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Rogue One is a Star Wars universe I could get into, dark and murderous and crazy and action packed. Not the George Lucas Star Wars universe of namby-pampy muffin religions summarized by a bumper sticker, and adolescent barely-shaving heroes who really don’t want to hurt anybody, and muppets, and outlandish aliens which are there just to give the make-up people something to do and a story line right out of My Weekly Reader. That’s because George Lucas didn’t really have anything to do with this movie other than putting his name in the opening credits. Residuals, doncha know.

So this was an actually GOOD Star Wars movie. A damn good one, probably the best of the first three (which is NOT the prequels! They are NOT the first three movies! They are afterthoughts, embarrassments, more of Lucas’ muffin universe where we gotta have clones because, ewww, we can’t show PEOPLE getting hurt! Except Darth Vader. Who becomes evil because of a girl. Isn’t that always the case?)

Ahem…

Based on an offhand remark made early in the first Star Wars (yes, dammit, the FIRST Star Wars!), Rogue One is a Star Wars movie for grownups. This is war as it actually is: people die, things get broken, great tragedies are visited over large swaths of territory usually because some overbearing, nasty, and oppressive power wishes to be overbearing and nasty and we freedom loving people object. So, war, because oppressive powers don’t understand anything else (got that, bleeding hearts?) And what a war, fought with the terrible intensity you would expect from high-energy weapons and technology. You will be stunned. You will be engrossed. You won’t even notice some glaring inconsistencies.

Like…there’s still a Senate? Didn’t that kinda end when the Emperor made his move? But, wait, wasn’t Princess Leia a Senator or something in the first movie and, wait, that didn’t make sense back then, either.

I’m confused.

But, don’t worry about it, because this is a straight up story. The Death Star has been activated and nobody in the Senate (which, really shouldn’t exist anymore) knows about it…I mean, the zillions of dollars and zillions of diversions of labor and materials from all over the friggin’ galaxy just wasn’t noticed by anybody. Jedi knights didn’t even pick up on it (that Force can be fickle). So, the evil Director

(played by absolutely one of the greatest actors of our time, Ben Mendelsohn. If you don’t believe me, start watching Bloodline) is trying to keep it hidden before unleashing it on the unsuspecting Rebels, because, ya know, nobody has even HEARD about this gigantic metal moon that’s eating up all the dilithium crystals (or whatever they are) in the universe when Peter Cushing shows up (wait, isn’t he dead?) and wants to take over so prove to me this hunk of junk actually works and so the Director does. Hoo boy, does it work, in a constrained test shot that is ten thousand times more graphic and terrifying than the much-beloved destruction of Alderan.

But, don’t worry, there’s a heroine, pulled into this entire mess by some of the most convoluted and downright implausible means that only a scriptwriter could manufacture, and she’s going to get those Death Star plans. Or die trying.

And there you have it.

Darth Vader is in this one.

The real Darth Vader, not that petulant kid you just want to slap the crap out of, or that Kylo Kilo pajama boy, but Darth friggin’ Vader hisself, all broody and scary and living in his Fortress of Solitude on the lava world. I swear he told his architect to make his home as intimidating as possible, to discourage visitors, I guess. And I guess he saved money by incorporating old Star Wars sets into the place, but it was good to see him. And he is a true badass, as the last sequence will reveal, when you’ll get to see Stepford Princess Leia, too.

There is a battle sequence involving a master switch that will make your head explode, because someone has to go to the master switch and set dial 7 to the 400 mhx range and then throw fuse 11765883 into the neutral position and then wait five seconds and turn the base plate 28.5 degrees magnetic north and then jump on one foot and hold your breath and…really, somebody should write this down. And, of COURSE, the switch is right out there in the middle of the entire Imperial storm trooper army. Of course. Wouldn’t it be easier to drive an Imperial Star Cruiser right through the Star Gate?

Sheesh, Captain Kirk would have just photon torpedoed the whole mess.

Anyway. Go see it. It’s a blast. And if you don’t cry at the end, you’re a Sith.

Godzilla! Or, more accurately, Shin Gojira, the latest iteration of the much beloved rampaging monster, who has been everything from a Hasbro Toy to a Saturday morning cartoon. Nothing endears more than destructive forces.

This version is all Japanese, which makes it a lot of fun. For one, Godzilla’s actually IN this movie, and not just making a cameo as he did in the recent American production. Nope, the Goj is right there big and bad and on screen in the first five minutes or so after the Japanese Coast Guard discovers a boat drifting aimlessly about the Bay (said boat becomes important later on. Sort of. If you’re paying attention. And you might not be by that time) and suddenly there’s steam and blood―yes, blood―pouring into a tunnel…wait a minute, tunnel disaster? Did we not just see something like this? Then Godzilla appears…in the guise of a giant sock puppet weasel. With button eyes. Kinda cute, in an Ultraman kinda way. But then it evolves into the Godzilla we’ve all come to love…actually, the most insane looking Godzilla ever. Really. This guy looks completely deranged, teeth and all. With a tail twice as long and a mind of its own. And lasers and an air defense system. Really.

The Japanese response is to legislate Godzilla to death. Never have you seen the formation of more and more elaborate committees, themselves evolving from “Basic Emergency Committee” to such things as the “Ad-Hoc Cross Party Unexplained Creature Smashing Us Committee for Peace and Well-Being and the Next Elections” committee, which can’t make a decision so they bring together the “Committee of Nerds, Dweebs, Mavericks, Rebels, Outcasts, Druids, Compound Interest, and A Couple of Guys who Are Standing Around” to make a decision but they can’t, either, but at least they can do research. Guys running around the instantly well-equipped and prepared conference room (I mean, wow, the moment a new committee is formed, phalanxes of toadies are putting tables and chairs and servers together in pleasing and tasteful manners) throw laptops at each other the moment they discover something interesting, like radioactivity is rising everywhere the insane sock puppet goes. You will be amused.

But, mostly, you will be baffled.

The onslaught of subtitles will blind you. There are two sets, a top one superimposed on the kanji explaining which committee this is and who comprises it (very important because you can’t know the players without a scorecard) and what their relationship to the government is, and the bottom set of subtitles telling you what everyone is saying. Essentially, it’s a movie sandwich, and I advise you to stick with the bottom ones only because the committees change so fast you don’t really care anymore. There is US intervention, honchoed by a Japanese woman who’s a US government representative…suuure she is…who essentially wants to nuke Japan. Again. The committees take a dim view of this and they invoke a National Emergency (finally! Someone makes a decision! We don’t know who!) and unleashes the Japanese military on the sock puppet.

Hoo boy. Shoulda nuked it.

Because vintage Godzilla swings into action as the sock puppet shakes off missiles and tank rounds and smashes Tokyo like the Hulk under the influence of the Scarlet Witch (see what I did there?) A couple of US bombers show up and put a hurtin’ on the Goj (to the enthusiasm of at least one cabinet member. Nice to know we’re still appreciated) but all that does is make it mad. You wouldn’t like him when he’s mad (see what I did there, again?). And the smashathon, radioactive-breathathon of Tokyo goes into overdrive. Oh no. Let’s freeze him.

Yeah. Freeze him.

But, don’t be put off. This is, indeed, a very fun movie…as long as you stay awake between committee changes.

Korean films are over-the-top crazy. And they are over-the-top good. If you haven’t seen A Hard Day yet, stop right now and go watch it…see what I mean? Well, Seong-Hun Kim, the director, has a new one: The Tunnel. And it’s over-the-top crazy. And over-the-top good.

A car dealer, Jung-so, just closed a deal for a fleet of cars and it’s his daughter’s birthday and he’s driving home with her cake and happily enters Hado Tunnel Number One (which apparently runs for about 475 miles through the most untraveled stretch of highway on the Korean peninsula) when it collapses. Always something, isn’t it? And not just “collapse,”…a friggin’ apocalyptic cave-in of not only the tunnel but half the mountain, leaving only a few feet of the far exit still open. Jung-so’s Kia sedan withstands a pummeling of rock and earth that would have flattened an Abrams tank (good cars, them Kias), living him dirty, bruised, intact, and trapped.

He whips out his cell phone, which doesn’t explode, and calls the most incompetent 911 dispatcher in the Korean peninsula, triggering the most epically inept rescue operation in human history. Apparently, about the only things that work well in Korea are Kias and cell phone towers (and the battery in Jung-so’s phone, which lasts forever, and even his car battery which lasts even longer. Without exploding) because it turns out the tunnel was built by the most incompetent construction company in all of Asia, one that put in too few support rods and doesn’t know how many fans it installed, nor where they installed them, and didn’t bother to draw up the blue prints to any kind of scale or accuracy. And, which is in charge of building Hado Tunnel Number Two, a few feet away from where Jung-so is trapped. After about an hour, said company starts lobbying to resume blasting on its new tunnel because, hey, Jung-so is trapped in our first shoddily built tunnel so he’s a goner so let’s stop wasting time here and get on with it. All of which drives the rescue commander, Dae-kyong (played by Dal-su Oh of Oldboy fame)―the only competent man in the entire Korean government―nuts to the point he drinks a bottle of urine in solidarity with Jung-so.

No, seriously.

All of which emphasizes the point that, if you’re trapped in a tunnel in Korea (or a haunted island, or a sealed apartment) you’d best start thinking about getting yourself out of this pickle because the government honchos in this movie don’t put a whole lot of value on your individual soul. I don’t know if that’s Seong-hun Kim’s particularly political viewpoint or the result of having a lot of crazy people to your north with nukes, but it doesn’t take long before the ministries and bureaus and the population decide to write Jung-so off and get on with it. Now why they would allow the obviously inept construction company to get on with it, I can’t say, but it may be due to the particularly gruesome death of a rescue worker (apparently saw blades in Korea are made by Samsung) which is blamed on Jung-so’s wife, who apparently has the last say on whether Jung-so should be rescued or not (someone should check to see if she recently upped his life insurance). Scratch of the ole noggin’ here because rescue workers who die on duty in the US are considered heroes, not victims. ‘Course, we don’t have crazy people to our north with nukes. Just bacon.

It doesn’t end all happy and resolved, but it does get resolved, primarily through the individual effort of the one or two motivated and competent people in this whole cockup. Which is a lesson. No one’s going to save you but yourself.