A lot of missed opportunities...but bearable just...

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2019)

In a way you can't blame JJ Abrams for the mediocrity of Rise Of Skywalker. It felt like the first half of the film was JJ Putting bandaids on scenes and moments that happened in TLJ. At times it was subtle, and others
It was in your face so much, add in the throwbacks to everything Star Wars every 5 minutes that the film lacks an actual understandable storyline and character development.
Whole scenes could have been majorly cut down, I.e- C3po and the erasing of the memory sub plot that carried on too long, but of course they had that all in there so that the sub characters can have something to do. I had flashbacks of Rose and Finn in TLJ with that.
Adam Driver did a good job with a limited role he had in my opinion. Rey was awesome at everything she did of course, and that cringe scene of her pulling the ship
Down with the force was a totaL mess.
A lot of the film had so many scenes that you're meant to feel like "oh no they didn't just kill that character did they?", nah they didn't because 2-3 minutes later we find out they are fine and alive. Their was no sense of danger to any of the key characters once this effect is done once twice.
As it goes on we are given so much exposition that I felt I was in a class room and listening to someone explain every damn detail of what was happening . Again, these scenes take you out of being engaged in the movie. Let's not get into the ending with the emperor and Reys lineage, it's blatantly obvious that Disney had no clue where to go and thus, our protagonist is of course related to someone from the original films, and then we have a carbon copy of the end of ROTJ with Rey, Ren and the Emperor .
They say imitation is the first form of flattery, in this sequel trilogy and in this film, it's actually ridiculous and shows no creative flair when they were trying to end the saga but all they ended up doing was rehash everything old.
The film is bad per se, and I think a 6/10 is what it deserves. The cinematography /soundtrack and acting work well, it's just a shame how so many flaws in the narrative totally miss the mark. It's better than TLJ but not as good as TFA . Watching this is making me appreciate the original 6 films a lot more.
The rise of skywalker will please some but tbh, it's a sad ending to an iconic story.