Not as bad as Solo, but it's easily the worst of the sequel trilogy.

Rating: 4/10 (21 December 2019)

It's finally arrived, and somehow I managed to avoid any spoilers for Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, the final chapter in what has come to be known as The Skywalker Saga.
I will be talking spoilers later, but I will make it super clear before going there.
First, the good stuff. It was nice to see Carrie Fisher in this, despite passing away, she had a much bigger part than I expected. Secondly, there were two very unexpected throwback cameos, which made my eyes light up and put a big smile on my face. Thirdly, I had said after watching the previous movies that I hoped there would be some explanation as to the Mary-Sue-like abilities that Rey has. There is an explanation for her force abilities (but not really for other things like her ability to expertly pilot a variety of space ships).
General Pryde was also great, finally we have First Order General who is a bad ass and has that intimidating air about him like the upper echelon of the Imperial forces of old. He was really underused though, I think.
Apart from that, I'm genuinely struggling to think of anything else that I enjoyed in this.
I just found myself shaking my head time and time again through it. The opening 30 to 40 minutes is absolutely frenetic and rushes along at such a pace that it makes your head spin. It then slows down a little bit, but continues jumping all around all over the place and bounces runs from being a macguffin treasure hunt, to being a big confusing space battle. It was fade wipe fade wipe fade wipe with hardly anything in between.
This movie has video game plotting and I doubt anyone could explain the plot in detail after one viewing.
And speaking of plot, this relies wayyyyy too much on convenience and coincidence. At several points its like "oh man we can't do this thing without one of these things, oh look here's one of those things" and then run off to the next thing.
The dialogue, especially in the first act is so so bad. The line reads were stiff and wooden, and extremely unnatural. I can't believe these were the best takes for the edit. They felt shoehorned in as exposition.
And in other parts it was just the same lines repeated different ways. You might remember the "they fly now?" scene from one of the teasers - this type of repeating dialogue happens quite a few time through the Rey / Finn / Poe scenes. It was just irritating.
And as for the contents of that dialogue. Some absolute key plot points that needed explanation were glossed over in a passing comment. Apart from a throwaway comment which was, I think, nothing definite, just a character taking a guess, I'm sure there was no explanation as to how the Emperor was still alive (I am happy to be corrected on this).
There was just so much stuff that made me shake my head, and I can't really talk about them without talking spoilers, sooooo
SPOILERS BELOW
So where to start? Okay so, Leia's a bloody Jedi now? Huh? When on earth did she find the time for this? And not just a Jedi, but a MASTER? And one that could train an apprentice? Huh?
Or how about how the second Death Star that exploded into nothing, yet there are enormous chunks of it on that planet's surface, big huge cavernous sections, not to mention intact stormtrooper armour, and the worst of all THERE'S STILL GLASS IN THE WINDOW OF THE THRONE ROOM.
The stupid map on the knife thing was straight out of National Treasure or The Goonies. You're telling me that the wreckage never once moved in all those big waves enough to mess up the alignment? Or how about how they just happened to be at the right place on the shoreline to be able to line it up? Coincidence and convenience are used far too many times to move the plot along.
Then there is the just plain bad film-making - in the final battle Finn and Jannah are on the hull of a Star Destroyer, and in one scene they are setting up a gun to blast the command deck, then we cut away for around 15mins, then finally go back to them, just in time to see them connect a cable that starts firing the gun. What on earth were they doing in the time that passed? Did they just stand around and have a smoke break?
As soon as I saw Rey shoot lightning it confirmed for one of my Rey theories, that she was a Palpatine. As soon as he turned up in the trailer, I guessed she would be a Palpatine. Making her a Skywalker would have been too obvious.
Then one of the biggest sins was one key moment of tension being ruined by the trailer. In that final battle, the small band of fighters are outnumbered and all seemed hopeless. Eeeeeexcept, in my mind I'm thinking "We're at the end of the movie but we still haven't seen that scene from the trailer where there's hundreds of Resistance ships." Sure enough just as Poe has given up hope all the good guys arrived.
Then there was the kiss between two people who wanted to murder each other 24 hours earlier, oh man, I could go on but I think it's pretty clear what I thought of this.
It's claimed to be a part of the Skywalker saga, but this sequel trilogy has very very little to do with any of the Skywalkers.
It's not as bad as Solo, but it's easily the worst of the sequel trilogy.
I think that if the modern Star Wars is all you know, you'll probably like this and think it rounds out the trilogy, if a little rushed in its execution.
I think though that if you grew up watching Star Wars its probably going to leave you feeling a little bit like somethings missing and maybe the magic has gone.