Thoroughly enjoyable, great end to the saga

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2020)

Having thoroughly enjoyed "The Rise of Skywalker", I was really surprised by the negative reviews it's received. I had pretty much no complaints after watching the film... well one, but we'll get to that.
For me, this film wrapped the saga up really well while also introducing some great new characters (Babbu Frik anyone?) and undoing the errors of "The Last Jedi". It's fast-paced, exciting, and surprising - with fun cameos. I loved the dynamic between Rey and Ren, bought to life by brilliant acting by Driver. I enjoyed the humour, especially C3PO coming into his own. There were so many more things I enjoyed about this film and was so pleased with the way Abrams finished the series.
So, my complaint about this film isn't really about this film. It's about TLJ. Some of the content from this film would have been better set up in TLJ, but Johnson was clearly heading in a different direction (a visually spectacular but story-poor one). It would have been far better and more consistent and cohesive if Abrams had created all three movies and if someone (anyone!) had planned the plot in advance. For a saga this big and important, it makes no sense to have different directors taking it in different directions and having no clear story planned out from the start.
That said, I loved this film and I did really enjoy TLJ and TFA. I found these three episodes infinitely better than the dreadful prequels from when I was a kid (poor acting, very basic plot, Jar Jar Binks, lack of visual impact, cringey script... etc.) - I just wish there had been more consistency between these episodes.