A hollow flashy shell

Rating: 5/10 (21 December 2019)

As a long time fan of Star Wars and movies in general I followed all the leaks and rumors, because I was curious of what would happen after the very bad episode 8.
So I went with no expectations and was mildly surprised, because it isn't THAT bad. The plot is in fact hard to follow, especially in the beginning. There are a lot of jump cuts and the movie feels like two movies have been cramped into one. The interaction between the characters is good and for the first time you get the feeling there actually is a chemistry there. The production value also is excellent, but hey, Disney has money.
*** SPOILERS ***
The problems, however, are immense:
1. There are a lot of plot holes. Not only in the movie itself, but also if you see all trilogies as a whole. To name just two: how did the emperor survived his fall into the shaft and the death star explosion? And why don't the rebel ships explode when the emperor hits them with force lightning while Rey destroys the other transporter?
2. The characters hardly have time to breath. The movie throws them from one bad situation into the next. So neither the characters nor the audience have time to process all of it and therefore the movies fails to make the audience connect with the characters and as a result the characters feel hollow. In the beginning I felt some excitement, but it quickly faded away after 60 minutes, because it was too much too fast.
3. The movie trys to gloss over its lack of substance with red herrings (Chewie "dies" and im the next scene we are told he didn't) and member berries. Remember when Yoda got the x wing out of the water? It is so cool when Luke does it. Or remember the duel between Vader and Luke on the death star? Let's play the proper music theme. Also Han Solo shows up to give Ben a pep talk.
4. On closer examination it has the same beats as RotJ: death of the 2nd master (Yoda and now Leia), first the quest to get a thing (freeing Han and now finding the way finder) confrontation with the emperor, attack on a massive fleet of star destroyers, "ground attack" to make sure the big target can be achieved. In total it is a creative bankruptcy.
5. The plot is so contrived it is almost painful. Every time the heroes have reached a dead end, something happens. For instance when the heroes get captured on the desert plamet, Lando shows up and saves them. Or when the Rebels seem to lose the final battle, Lando shows up with A LOT of ships. And so on. The things happen because they need to happen. This is not good! There is no organic unfolding of the events. Unlike in Revenge of the Sith. And because of all of that the plot is a video game plot - only without the interaction.
6. The problem with Rey remains. Although Daisy Ridley does and the writers did a better job this time to make Rey more more likable for me, there was at no time the possbility of failure. Unlike Luke, who almost killed his father and came just in the time to realize what he was about to do when Luke chopped off Vaders mechanical hand. Luke took a look at his own mechanical hand and stopped. It was a wound inflicted by his father that saved him. Rey does not have this kind of wound. Rey also doesn't save anybody, she only kills the evil. (Ben is saved by Leia and Han.)
7. The unmotivated and unexplained return of Palpatine just nullifies Luke's and Anakin's story and redemption, respectively. Every fan with a brain should be able to see this. Also since Rey is a Palpatine, Palpatine effectively won.
To conclude: if you turn off your brain and don't ask any questions you are going to enjoy this movie. If you start to think, you'll soon notice the mediocrity of this movie.