Mark Hamill makes Luke Skywalker’s eagerness likeable and the Joker’s malice sound like fun. We value his commitment to both, though The Long Walk shows that a growl is not enough.
Fi1m perspective
Luke Skywalker receives his father’s lightsaber, and Mark Hamill lets us enjoy how eager he is. In George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977), his enthusiasm is a considerable service to writing that often gives him little else to play. Alec Guinness brings authority to Obi-Wan Kenobi, helping the solemn dialogue pass, while Hamill makes the prospect of adventure feel inviting. The exchanges are sometimes stiff, but we would rather have this straightforward enthusiasm than an actor apologising for the material.
Luke became a restriction as well as a breakthrough: typecasting narrowed Hamill’s opportunities for leading film roles after Star Wars. The substantial voice career he built from the early 1990s gave him characters to play without that familiar face getting there first. His Joker in Batman: The Animated Series (1992) combines theatrical glee with menace, particularly in the laugh. He returned to Luke in the sequel trilogy, including Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), without abandoning voice work.
In Chris Sanders’s The Wild Robot (2024), he voices Thorn, the grizzly bear whose answer to Roz’s offer of assistance is to chase her off a cliff. We laughed more than we expected at the robot being knocked into the sea. Sanders plays the encounter as slapstick, and the bear’s blunt hostility is exactly what the robot’s bright helpfulness needs. We recommend the film warmly, with reservations about a last third that replaces too much feeling with action.
The heavier villainy of The Long Walk (2025) is less successful. Francis Lawrence presents Hamill’s Major in aviator glasses and a growl, asking him to be frightening and a joke; he sustains neither for long. The voice announces a threat, but the performance does not keep it convincing. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson carry this grim film, which we find worth an evening, but do not go in expecting Hamill to be its chief attraction.
Biography
Mark Hamill is an American actor. He is known for portraying Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, beginning with Star Wars (1977) and continuing in subsequent entries including The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).
Hamill has also worked extensively as a voice actor, including as the Joker in animated DC Comics projects from Batman: The Animated Series (1992) onwards. His later roles include Thorn in The Wild Robot (2024) and The Major in The Long Walk (2025).
