Star Wars is finally dead.

Rating: 3/10 (19 December 2019)

I'm not sure wether it's worse or better than Episode VIII. This movie is just utter chaos. Pretty much every scene is created for spectacle or heavy-handed characterization. The majority are hamfistedly lifted from the first trilogy. Famous EPIV-VI imagery is crowbared in without any sensitivity for the symbolism. "You like Emporer Palpatine, right?" Disney seems to shout in dispair.
Nothing flows naturally, most events seem to come out of nowhere and aren't explained in the slightest. Kylo Ren needs to find a thingy. Why? Don't ask. look at the flashy lightsaber. The crew finds an ancient weapon that leads to some important thing. Why? They were lucky i guess, it's not important, look at the shiny lights. The screenplay is absolutely predicteable, even the big twist in the middle is a horrible rehash.
The relationships between protagonists feel forced and constructed. Rey and Finn try their best to resemble Han and Leia, but it's done very clumsy and artificial. Not Anakin-PadmÃ©-clumsy, but still far from natural. Lightsabers are swiss army knives for Jedis instead of mystical weapons which should be used with caution. The force is super-powerful, unless the screenplay doesn't want it. Rey jumps around like Super Mario in one scene and struggles heavily to climb a rock in the next. And the humorous scenes mostly fall flat beside some minor exceptions.
There are only a few good bits. The lightsaber battles feel a lot less like some ridiculous dance coreography or circus act, but more like a struggle between two opposing characters. And there is a beautiful homage to Carrie Fisher, which actually felt dear, honest and respectful. But most good ideas here are merely touched on and dropped in favour of more spectacle.
What little of Star Wars magic remained has finally left the screen. It's now a disney amusement ride, just over two hours long. This is Disney in full blown panic mode, solely relying on hype and fan service to generate revenue. At times it seems like J.J. just wanted to be done with it. This is the director, whose dream was to make Star Wars movies! I was dragged in by friends claiming a need for closure, but i left 30 minutes before the end. It felt like i could spend my time in better ways.
Unless you don't give a damn about subtlety, consistency, flow, interesting characters and a lot more central moviemaking guidelines, don't watch this.