A very good film IF you can overcome the obvious flaws

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2019)

The film is a 7.5. Some of the 1 and 2 star reviews are over reactive nonsense. It's not a bad film. If you can get past the pointless death of Leia, a story line that undermines luke and anakins character archs and a whimsical decision to kill kylo ren for the sake of it, then the film is very enjoyable. Its well paced with plenty of fan service (if you don't like fan service, get over yourself). There are some truely heart warming moments in the film like Luke grabbing the light saber.
Yeah the film missed a trick or two, I would have loved to see a bunch of force ghosts join forces with rey to kill Palpatine rather than just having a series of inspirational quotes leading the Rey blowing everything up.... but this is compensated for some decent action and heart thumping moments that you have to convince yourself not to like.
I chose to go into this film looking at it is a standalone expanded universe story and as a result I was rewarded with a decent action packed star wars story.