And the Modern Movie Continues To Decline . . .

Rating: 5/10 (5 November 2017)

(Spoiler Alert?)
Where to begin? Let's start with the rating. At the time of this writing - November, 2017 - it stands at 7.9. 7.9??? Indeed? Just look and see what REAL movies have gotten a 7.9 on the IMDb, and then ask yourself whether this Cartoon comes anywhere near close. Admittedly, it is easy to understand why the Loser demographic might see it that way, and it would not be the first time a movie designed like this so appealed to 15-year-old future non-achievers (as well as those still living in their parents' basement at age 27), but it is completely out-of-line with the broad spectrum of movies made since The Great Train Robbery became the world's first feature film in 1903. Maybe the IMDb should have a dual ratings system: one for real movies, and another for Star Wars / Star Trek spinoffs.
Essentially, this movie is a predictably unsuccessful attempt to merge the now-venerable Star Wars genre with the more modern explosion-and-grunge-fest genre where the stars are flashes of light and smoke that go "boom", and the Awards at the end of the year get handed out only to the special effects department. These are two different genres that this movie proves do not blend well (even if the explosion-fest offered anything to anybody other than a zit-faced adolescent male with a C-average). The former genre was light, breezy, optimistic, good old-fashioned melodrama; classic action-adventure with the the can-do spirit tone of classic action adventure. It eschews the need to tangle with much if any moral ambiguity, something the original Star Wars was noted for as a breath (actually, more like a WIND) of fresh air in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-1960's-mayhem world of 1977 when it was first released. The second genre is perpetually moody, downbeat, apocalyptic, oppressive, and frequently overwhelmed with moral ambiguity. Nobody is ever very calm or confident; the actors are scruffy if not utterly grungy; and even the girls are never really very pretty, either. (I have to wonder if this genre appeals to certain people because they, too, are perpetually downbeat and hopeless in their overall outlook, and such movies are something they can relate to.) Thus, the main characters here are almost utterly devoid of humor, much less any kind of love of life, as well as much external beauty. The result is that they are not compellingly likable, nor compelling in any other way. One could be forgiven for rooting for the villains, here; at least they were true to their warped souls and they certainly believed unambiguously in their own values, such as they were, as well as themselves (not to mention being impeccably well-groomed!)
Perhaps worse still, basic story-telling gets lost in all the noise and smoke. With this movie, I don't know what happened, except that the good guys get what they are after in the end. But I can't tell you just exactly how they did that. The frenetic scene-shifting is just too fast and frantic for that. And in that, the movie fails utterly. The purpose of nearly any movie is to tell an entertaining story. Being "entertaining" means getting you emotionally involved. Here, the story gets too muddled to follow completely, and when that happens, it loses its dramatic (i.e., emotional) grip on the audience, and what should be a powerful, compelling, even epic story becomes a gigantic, expensive "so what?" While this movie does a creditable job of aping interesting combat moments from modern war movies from *Apocalypse Now* to the present, it doesn't matter. It is hard to get emotionally-involved enough to care what is happening on the screen for too much of it. Whatever deficiencies the George Lucas movies may have suffered from (George Lucas did NOT make this one), he never lost sight of that.
And thus, in those parts where this movie stays true to its Star Wars roots, it has some of the classic Star-Warsian features that were so significant to elevating the franchise to the lofty heights of popularity it has enjoyed. The secondary characters are often very interesting and there are a number of clever lines and plot devices that showcase that; in point of fact, they are often more interesting than the main characters. The way they are included here also evokes a certain *Magnificent Seven* quality which is welcome even if it is not a classic Star Wars flavor. If there was anything wrong with them it was that in combination with the main characters and other supporting characters, there were too many of them, with too little time available for focusing adequately on each one.
Moreover, the movie has the now-classic Star Wars look and sound (if mostly lacking in its feel). The music was not bad if not as prominent as is characteristic of the earlier films. The special effects were as good as they should have been. Appropriate cameos by major story arc characters and actors necessary to graft this story, which is after all a subsidiary one to the main arc, now drilled into the audience's collective memory with the power of over forty years' retelling, onto the main story line, is present. And in that vein the ending was of a kind that was was never so welcome as it was here, finally returning to and regrounding you in what a Star Wars movie should be all about in the first place (dare I say it: a prominent, upbeat and unambiguous tone of "Hope").
Thus, I rate this at 5/10 stars: not a compelling should-see (7/10) nor even a completely technically competent yet slow or dull effort (6/10), but simply an expensive, epic bad idea.