Underwhelming

Rating: 5/10 (19 December 2019)

Rise Of Skywalker is a clunky finale to the Skywalker Saga that has great setup and a lacklustre finale that doesn't quite stick the landing. Some of the positives were the handling of Rey and Kylo Ren with Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley both giving great performances, as well as being uniquely shot with a great Score and Visual Effects. On the other hand this movie would have greatly benefited from being 3 hours long similar to Avengers : Endgame, as story threads don't get as well developed as needed. The complete ignorance to the prequel trilogy is also rage ensuing as this movie makes Darth Vader's sacrifice in Return Of The Jedi pointless and only has one appearance of Anakin as a voice in Rey's head. It was also an awful decision to only have Luke and Leia appear as force ghosts in the last scene where Ben Solo and Anakin Skywalker (the 2 other Skywalker's) are left out. Another poor decision was to make Kylo and Rey somewhat of a romance with a completely forced kiss at the end that felt unnatural and out of place. I believe that Rise Of Skywalker will completely divide the fans just as The Last Jedi did and could have been so much better if Disney and J.J Abrams had made some more bold decisions with the ending and included elements from the prequel trilogy.