If it was just the plot holes that were the problem it could be forgiven.

Rating: 3/10 (7 April 2020)

I feel like I'm late to the party on this movie and I certainly echo the general consensus here. First some background: I grew up in the 90s so I saw the initial trilogy well after their release but loved them as a child. I played many of the video games and I was well versed in the lore. When the prequels dropped I was now in my twenties and at best they were disappointing and I had all but ceased to care about the Star Wars universe; partly as a result of getting older and partly because of the taint of the prequels.
So I was skeptical of the rebooted sequels. I would call myself pleasantly surprised with The Force Awakens. It wasn't fantastic. It played it very safe, necessarily though, and I could forgive that given the musk of the prequels hung heavy over all things Star Wars. It did what it had to do. Then we had The Last Jedi. It had nice visuals, but I didn't have much else I could say I enjoyed. Bizarre character motivations, weird backtracks, and it felt like it was written by a different author. Because it was.
Which brings us to Rise of the Skywalker. What a colossal mess. I don't envy JJ Abrams. I suspect he was given the impossible task of walking the line between people that were divided on whether to follow the path set by The Last Jedi or The Force Awakens. So when he came to a fork, Abrams took it. He tried to write out some of the controversial decisions from The Last Jedi while not completely abandoning some of the leg work done. It's an impossible task to finish a story while simultaneously rewriting the middle bit. And yet, that's what was tried. Ambitious, and probably impossible. So you'd think the movie would have to pack a ton of story tie all these loose ends up, right? No. Abrams spends so much time having our cast chase MacGuffins and visit new locales and introduce new characters that the plot moves at a break neck speed while still leaving huge plot holes and inconsistencies that people have spent videos as long as the movie itself breaking down.
And you know what? Fine. I can forgive silly plots. I can suspend my disbelief. It's not like the original trilogy didn't commit convenient deus ex machinas when the story demanded it. But if I could get lost in some good characters, dialogue, or maybe some eye candy it would be okay. It wasn't okay. There's a lot of focus on how awful the story is. And it is. But fewer people are talking about how bad the dialogue is. Everyone has seen the infamous "They fly now!" trailer. And that's what they decided to use as an ADVERTISEMENT. What they kept in the movie is even WORSE. Bad quips, lots of exposition, over acting, just zoom zoom zoom from one place to another without people stopping to disagree in a meaningful way. It's a script written by a 10 year old for 10 year olds. It's The Fast and Furious of Star Wars, and I mean that in the more derogatory way possible. And ironically enough, neither my 9 year old son, 7 year old daughter, or wife could sit through the entire movie.
And the characters - what a waste. Entire character arcs are thrown out. Finn never reconciles with his time as a Stormtrooper, we don't learn about Poe's history, Rose Tico is almost written out completely, and the most important characters, Kylo and Rey, are so schizophrenic from movie to movie there's nothing left to take away. Two more throw away characters are introduced and neither are developed. This movie can't tell the difference between characters and characterization.
Who was this movie made for? Not the diehards, who have picked it apart relentlessly, not the casuals who will be disappointed by the disjointed, confusing storytelling. Women? Not my wife or any of her friends. Even children are going to find this boring. Yes, boring. Even the big set piece action scenes are either not exciting or just stuff we've seen before. More Star Destroyers, more laser sword fights (anemic ones), and more laser guns going pew pew pew. At least The Last Jedi had some nice cinematography and some memorable (if vapid) action sequences. This has nothing. If I award any points it's because the acting is at least fine. As in it's not as bad as the prequels. Adam Driver is probably the best but his competition is weak.
It was as if you got two people to build a piece of furniture but you told one of them to build a chair and the other to build a dresser. Your end product is this ugly, unstable, awkward, uncomfortable, painful, unsightly mess better used for firewood. I don't blame the engineers for following their instructions, but I do blame the people that bankrolled this project. The only good thing to come out of this trilogy are hilarious memes, and (hopefully) the end of a hopelessly bereft franchise.