It's an ending Jim, but not as we know it.

Rating: 8/10 (29 February 2020)

So does the Skywalker saga end with a whimper or a bang? Um. Yes.
Let me just start by saying I love Avengers Endgame. What does that have to do with this film? Well apart from Rey declaring I am Iron Man and snapping her fingers to turn Palpatine into dust at the end, very little. And that's sort of my first problem with it: expectation. I went in expecting Star Wars: Endgame and that's not what this film is, despite the trailers leading you to believe that. It is in fact, Return of the Jedi 2 with less partying at the end.
As I said in my Return of the Jedi review, they stopped taking it seriously, did some ridiculous rubbish, and had a lot of fun in the process. This is pretty much the same vibe. Things come out of nowhere (Rey is a Palpatine what now?), things don't really add up (what exactly was Finn trying to tell Rey near the start?), things don't have consequences (Chewbacca and that blood y second shuttle), and quite frankly what on earth was Palpatine doing: sending out vague threats of revenge off screen, burying some star destroyers for a dramatic reveal, giggling behind Kylo Ren's back because he may or may not have wanted him to do what he was doing, and then just sitting back and chilling until the last ten minutes.
It's a mess, but on second viewing I can confirm, it's a highly enjoyable mess because it's all about the fun! Rey, Finn and Poe are reunited and on top form, C3PO is having a whale of a time, Lando is back and living up to all our memories of him, Kylo Ren is suddenly... likeable? (Never thought that would have happened), Palpatine is back for a laugh and he's recruited Richard E Grant to replace the laughing stock General Hux became. We're revisiting the moon of Endor, we're having force visions, Poe's getting some backstory, Leia's being retroactively Jedi-ed. It's nuts. But it's definitely entertaining.
On the negative side, the whole thing does start to drift from feeling like an Indiana Jones adventure into feeling more like an annoying video game quest. But it snaps out of that. And the ending is a bit underwhelming (Needed more yub nub).
But on the positive side, the scene where Kylo talks to his memory of his dad was an unexpected and moving delight (Harrison Ford has still got it), and the film actually made me like Kylo Ren. Plus I definitely heard Ewan McGregor whisper something to Rey near the end, and I'm willing to put up with a couple traumatic Hayden Christensen flashbacks and if I can have some Kenobi ones too.
It's far from perfect, but it's fun and enjoyable and once I knew what to expect from it, I was happy.