If you must see it, lower your expectations

Rating: 2/10 (31 December 2019)

After the movie ended, my 8-years-old son asked me his usual question: "Which scene did you like the best?". And for the first time since we had started going to the movies together, I couldn't find an answer, although I really tried. My son then proceeded to express his own opinion: "The scene I hated the most was... (some dark sequence involving Palpatine)", and I quietly noted the inversion from "liked" to "hated".
Next day after I saw the movie, I'm still struggling with the answer to my son's question. The Rise Of Skywalker was filled with Star Wars-like imagery and action, and yet there was nothing particularly original or memorable. I've seen it all, and much more, in the previous movies. In fact, if I still remember any of the scenes, it's because how awful they were, such as this utterly stupid cavalry attack on the surface of a star destroyer.
Speaking of which, there were so many occurrences and plot points that took it far beyond believable, even for a Star Wars movie. Palpatine resurrected without explanation and brought back with a space armada, at the snap of a finger. And then killed by a girl in training at the heart of his power, while everything around him popped like a balloon. Oh, and by the way, if you want to convey power of a space fleet, remember that sometimes less is more. You can show three battleships against a backdrop of a red star and make them look menacing. Show the same three battleships doing planetary bombardments and you can create a sense of a galaxy-wide tyranny and oppression. But if you simply copy and paste the outline of a battleship a hundred times to fill in the sky in perfect rows, this will simply look like a bad cartoon.
To me, the biggest fault of The Rise Of Skywalker was that it felt too sterile and unimaginative. It's like they tried too hard to stay on the trodden path and shy away from any creativity or experimentation. As a result, they ended up with a worse movie than Episode VIII. The Last Jedi, for all its shortcomings, had its moments (such as Luke's exit) that compelled me to rewatch it on Netflix at least once. I'm not sure if I ever want to watch The Rise Of Skywalker again.