Poor Return of the Jedi . Poor, poor R eturn of the Jedi . Having to follow up from Empire Strikes Back has to be possibly the cruelest thing you could do to a film. Unfortunately, thanks to Empire ’s fantastic cliffhanger, something had to be done about it and that something would always be expected to top Empire . Does ROTJ succeed in doing that? No. Does that make it a bad film? Not at all. Everything You've Come to Expect ROTJ is very much still a Star Wars film and therefore has all the benefits you'd expect from one. The outstanding practical effects, makeup, costume and set design, are obviously still present and are just as much of a joy to look at as before. We're introduced to even more aliens, including the rather polarising Ewoks (although I personally have no problem with them) as well as Jabba the Hutt, someone we sort of saw in A New Hope , but I'm not counting that scene as it was a later special edition release and doesn't feature any o...

On an entirely surface level, Hail, Caesar! is a really silly film. The sets are bright and colourful, the characters are bombastic and larger than life and the plot is completely insane and all over the place. If you take a closer look, however, it's much more intelligent than it initially comes off as. Yes, the sets are bright, but their attention to detail is so fantastically minute, you're totally convinced that this is the 50's. The fake film sets are also just as convincing and the films themselves could easily pass off as authentic, if it wasn't for the 21st Century actors populating them. They are obviously slightly exaggerated, for the sake of satire, which probably resonates more with those familiar with retro cinema than regular filmgoers. It's also shot brilliantly by cinematographer Roger Deakins (who was recently Oscar nominated for his work on Sicario ), who manages to make the film feel like something that's not only set in the 50's, bu...