Ok, after two viewings here is my review for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This is spoiler free.
Overall this is a fun film, and a fine conclusion to the nine-part saga. There’s a lot to like here. Everyone is giving a good performance. The characters feel energetic and alive. The action is spectacular thanks to director JJ Abram’s signature fast paced style of editing. The emotional high points are good as well, there’s an inspirational speech from one character leading into the third act that really hit home for me…
What I’m trying to say is there is a lot of good here because well, there is a lot that does not work about the film. There is flat out some awful dialogue in this movie. Now Star Wars has always been iffy on dialogue and coming from myself who firsthand understands how hard it is to make dialogue sound convincing. But man, there are some poor choices here. From characters stating, “I will kill you” or one character’s flat out cry of “I’m the spy!” had me cringing. Now there are some good moments of dialogue, like the aforementioned speech and some wonderful character moments but a lot of the dialogue, especially in the first half of the film where the movie has to practically spoon feed its exposition to you using snow shovel sized exposition dumps, really does not lend to memorable dialogue. This is not helped by the pacing of the film. This story has a lot in it, as it set out to accomplish 3 goals. First it must round out the nine-part saga in a satisfying conclusion. Second it must forcibly backpedal anything interesting done by Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi because God forbid some people can’t live with themselves that that movie exists, and finally the movie must be a complete film with narrative structure. The Rise of Skywalker accomplishes all three of those goals in rather ham-fisted ways, some more successfully than others. In terms of wrapping up the saga the film does a fine job considering all the assets it has to use. The climax of the film is excellent in that regard, utilizing different pieces from across the Star Wars universe to create a cohesive finale. In terms of erasing The Last Jedi, something that I feel is not needed since The Last Jedi is a fantastic movie. The Rise of Skywalker does all it can to limit references to the last film. Rose, a character introduced in The Last Jedi, is essentially pushed into the background, while lines of forced (pun intended) dialogue are used to explain away other supposed “issues”.
Finally, the film must stand on its own as a complete narrative, and it is here that the movie commits its biggest sin. This film is full of logic gaps, continuity errors, and abandon’s plot threads and character arcs quicker than Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run. So many questions and plot threads are set up then just completely ignored by the end of the film that in some cases they are mentioned once and never referenced again, leading to the additional question of why they were there in the first place. This is especially a major problem when it comes to the film’s villains. We get almost zero explanations on anything related to Emperor Palpatine and his return. On top of that his location and mass amount of plot related items are on this new world and we get basically no information on where or how these items came into existence. The film brushes past these in such a quick manner that I kept expecting there to be some other twist in the story of how the Emperor and his minions came into existence nonetheless we get nothing.
The total lack of explanation here is particularly a problem since this film is the last in this saga and as such it’s supposed to answer all the film’s questions, not leave me sitting in my seat with my hand up begging for the screenwriters to call on me. I always try to look past logic gaps in movies, especially if the film is entertaining me like this one did. But for some reason this film’s gaffs left me wanting in terms of answers and I hate to say that about a Star Wars film. This is not at all helped by the film’s breakneck pacing, with the first half barreling towards the climax like a bat out of hell before slowing down to catch a slimmer of a breath before the nonstop third act battle. This quick of pace doesn’t allow the amount of time needed to let moments sink in and breathe. As such many big important revelations or emotional hits feel shallower than they are, since the audience can’t spend time to fully digest them before we are off to another location.
I’m going to move on from the negative because I do like the movie. There’s so much I want to talk about, but I will hold off since I wish to respect spoilers. I will say that the film’s two best aspects are the chemistry and relationship between the core group of characters; Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewie, and C-3PO, and everything involving Kylo Ren played spectacularly by Adam Driver. His performance and character arc (really the only character that gets a full arc besides Rey) makes this movie for me. My favorite scene is his pivotal moment at the end of the second act. It’s a very touching scene between him and another character that perfectly brings his arc full circle. The fact that it’s one of the few scenes’ that can slow down and breathe helps it a lot as well.
I would still highly recommend the film, as it is the end to the Skywalker storyline and does have many great moments. However, at the back of my mind I just have a feeling that it could have been so much more. It’s good, but it could have been great.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker final score: 7.5/10
