When I first saw the very poor reviews of the very last of the 9 Star Wars movies, the first one released 42 years ago – I originally thought that this could not be true. How could JJ Abrams, who both directed and co-wrote this last of the Star Wars movies, drop the ball and not spend enough time and resources to come up with a great story to end this greatest of all movie franchises? This could never happen. Impossible. Unfortunately, the critics are right and the failing grades on Rotten Tomatoes of only 57% are correct. The reason for this is the same reason for all blockbuster movies like this one that have spectacular special effects. All the money went to the computer graphics and the special effects and nothing was spent on coming up with one last final great story – like the first “Star Wars” or the second one, “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”.

The screenplay for this film, jumps from one battle, to another planet, to another scene, to another planet and then another scene, in many cases with no continuity and no connection, from one scene to the next. There is no way anybody can know what is really going on in this story and this problem also happened in the last Star Wars movie, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”, released in 2017. JJ Abrams shared the screenwriting credit with another writer, Chris Terrio  and it was almost as if they both wrote two different screenplays, had many different ideas and then they tried to pull it all together in the end. The task of writing the last Star Wars movie is enormous, perhaps the biggest in the history of movie production and for this reason, more time should have been taken for screenplay re-writes, to avoid ending this franchise with a very disappointing finale.  Not because of the special effects, but because of a bad story.

As far as this movie being the last one, my understanding is that there will be no more Star Wars movies, that involve the original characters and story, but there will be many more Star Wars movies, like the one released in 2016, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”. The reason for this is that Disney paid so much money to George Lucas for the rights to Star Wars that, there is no way this will be the last time we will see a movie about Star Wars.

The cast for this last Star Wars film is very strong with appearances from the late Carrie Fisher, with the use of archive footage. Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Mark Hamill and the main characters for these last 3 movies, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac. Nobody can blame these actors for a bad script and they all acted well. I also suspect, when they all did their last group hug, for me the best part of this film, that they were all relieved that this chapter in their acting careers has come to an end.

Unfortunately, like most of the critics, I cannot recommend this movie, except for the most die hard Star Wars fans. There is a chance that the producers of this movie decided to make this the last of all Star Wars movies because they were worried that the critics would be so harsh that this film would bomb at the box office. Telling the world that this was the last in the franchise, might create the same box office hit as “Avengers End Game” that was released in April of this year. However, the difference with Avengers End Game is that that film had a good story and this one does not.

If a remake of an original movie, in this case “Jumanji” released in 1995, makes money then there will be a sequel. This kind of movie is all about making money, not about the art form of making movies. “Jumanji: The Next Level” is so similar to the first movie, released 2 years ago, “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” that I found the only entertaining thing about the 2 hours was trying to figure out some of the new ideas that were thrown into this sequel. Some of these ideas were, adding Danny Divito, Danny Glover and Awkwafina as new characters. Within the game, making it possible using a special type of water for the character Avatars to switch to different people. Other than this, the entire story, game and eventual ending is about the same as the last movie. The reason for this once again – is the built in audience means to any producer that all we have to do is what we did the last time and the movie will make money. Why spend more time on new ideas and a great script? The money is already there for the taking, lets just take the money, not make a great movie. Considering all of this, what a waste to have someone as funny and talented as Kevin Hart and give him no lines that were funny.

The critical reviews for this sequel are about the same as the last one, about 65-70%. The other interesting caveat is that Jumanji is a remake of a movie made in 1995 starring Robin Williams that was at best pretty average, apart from the huge talent of Williams. Why remake an average movie? Why not remake a great movie? None of this makes much sense other than, money over quality, that is one of the problems with too many movies like this one that are made far too often.

Jumanji: The Next Level should be missed except for die hard fans of Kevin Hart or Dwayne Johnson. For the rest of us, there are many better movies than this one that have been recently released. See those movies and miss this one.

Director Clint Eastwood knows what many avid movie goers have realized for many years; that the best movies are often the ones that are about true stories. “Richard Jewell”, the new movie about a security guard who was falsely accused of planting a bomb at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta is one of the best true story properties Clint Eastwood’s production company has made in the last few years – on a par with “Sully” released in 2016.

The most amazing thing about this story of FBI and media incompetence is that something like this could ever happen to any decent human being in this country who was not only innocent, but a hero who saved countless lives because he did his job so well. Richard Jewell’s problem was that he fit too many of personal characteristics of other similar criminals and bombers, including the fact that he was kind of a loner who lived with his mother. Due to the desperation of the FBI, the speed of their “rushing go judgement” including missing the simple fact that the person who called in the bomb threat at a pay phone outside of the Olympic park on July 27, 1996 was too far away to also plant the bomb. Once the FBI realized they missed this obvious piece of evidence, they tried to manufacture a second possibility that Jewell was using an accomplice. The FBI then also tried to trick Jewell into confessing, by telling him they were going to shoot a training video for FBI personnel – something that I was amazed to see could ever happen in this country.

This nightmare that terrorized Richard Jewell, played perfectly by Paul Walter Hauser and his mother Bobi Jewell played by Kathy Bates went on for 88 days. The lead investigator Tom Shaw, played by John Hamm, even leaked the details of the FBI investigation against Jewell to a ruthless police reporter, Kathy Scruggs, played by Olivia Wilde. Once the investigation was leaked, Jewell’s picture was on the cover of every newspaper and magazine in this country, effectively ruining his reputation and destroying his life. None of the members of the FBI or the thousands of reporters covering this false story cared about Richard Jewell, they only cared about themselves and their careers. To this day, there are still many people in the world who think that Jewell had something to do with the Olympic bombing. Were it not for Jewell’s lawyer Watson Bryant played by Sam Rockwell, who he met a decade earlier during his delivery job in Watson’s law firm, its possible that Jewell would have been railroaded into jail. The relationship between Bryant and Jewell and how much Bryant cared about Jewell as a human being and a friend is one of the best things about this movie. When we are at our lowest, all of us need a friend; a great message in this film.

While watching this movie, realizing that Jewell was not only under tremendous stress but also obese, I had to wonder how he lived through this without dying of a stroke or a heart attack. Unfortunately Richard Jewell did die in 2007 of heart failure brought on by Diabetes.

I agree with the mostly positive reviews for Richard Jewell that are in the 75% range and my opinion is a bit higher at 80%. I recommend this movie as one of the best Eastwood films about a true story.