The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Strikes Back Displays the same soaring imagination that made Star Wars a filmmaking classic; most other space movies seem clunky and earthbound in comparison.

This is a respectable sequel to Star Wars but not as good.

The Empire Strikes Back is the ultimate in fantasies, a visual wonder and a movie that should be recommended highly if only because it makes you feel good.

Despite a couple of drawbacks, the Empire Strikes Back is an immense amount of fun -- big and splashy and breathtaking in its display of cinematic genius by a huge group of marvelously talented people.

Another richly imaginative, engrossing and spectacular motion picture from the redoubtable George Lucas.

The Empire may not top Star Wars, but it certainly makes one look forward to whatever new surprises George Lucas and his band of cinematic wizards can conjure up for us.

Promotions in the Galactic Empire are instigated by execution; torture is more vivid; villains are more numerous; loss is more agonizing; and happy endings are more elusive.

Kirshner's direction gives the film an extra flare that Star Wars did not have. He got to make things bigger, both physically and in terms of the ideas at play.

If A New Hope is the body of Star Wars, Empire can lay pretty good claim to being its soul.

That story counts for less than gimmicks, and characters less than both, might be judged from the lack of resonance in the one narrative revelation, concerning Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.