A puncture wound that deflates any resemblance of hope.

Rating: 3/10 (25 December 2019)

An empty shell of an experience that flows into, and through, a universe of its old style of plagiarism bringing a low echelon of excitement and without great direction of plot and script. There is nothing refreshing and impelling to bring the viewer to a captivating thrill. Fresh out of the box as Richard E. Grant (General Pryde) and Dominic Monaghan (Beaumont), and some, too, tried & tested stalwarts of past vigour's, exhume eye-watering inadequacy in extended persona or charisma and only divide a myth into a mirth of poor casting.
The shebang is topsy-turvy with new faces that don't gel and old players and creatures being regurgitated with the likes of Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Harrison Ford (Han Solo) and Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine) to hold the fort of a bygone era and to perpetuate the legend of Hope. The addition of Olde world players only condenses any credibility to bring a slight wave of nausea that should have really have been left to the past in the, once again, bygone era where integrity and respect still hold. This feels too misplaced and the rejuvenation of past character's only weathers the experience to a cringe worthy bemusement that concludes the proceedings of crossing the "T's" and doting the "I's".
The relationship of the leading lady of light and her dark nemeses (and within each oozes volumes of personality, charisma and intrigue between them, their personality, albeit from both sides of the screen, are a credit to the Star Wars saga) brings, now, only an entourage of stale narrative and lacklustre performance of once romantic and visionary heights; its all too short a conclusion within the stretch of timeframe within this latest chapter; this thin-on-the-ground finalÃ© that, it feels pushed and condensed to only befit this last phase of the two opposing opposites.
With the lack of wiz-bang set against the best of CGI, there is a deep contradiction that has hastily crept in this ninth episode, while visually stunning, we seem to have been fed a bland adventure, and the rotten apple at the bottom of this barrel, that is most certainly, and importantly, the final adventure. This entire ninth, and excluding the final two previous epic exploits, just feel tired, flat and punctured. Sadly, the epigraph, the writing on the wall, will, here, be always engraved as the film that not only lost its voice, but misplaced its tour de Force.