Checks all of the boxes but lacks heart

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2019)

What did you want to see in this movie?
Answers to Rey's parentage? Lightsaber battles? Spaceship battles? Ground war like in Rogue One? New characters? Old Characters? Locations and "World building"? Reylo? Finn? Poe? Less Rose? Droids? Bendemption? A Leia death scene? A villain with a history?
Well, the easy answer is that JJ Abrams neatly delivers all of these checkpoints in The Rise of Skywalker. The bad news is he delivers them at such a breakneck pace that the movie never has time to develop an emotional heart. There is never room to breathe in this movie. The pace is so frenetic that the storyline and relationships are not given the necessary time to build tension. The result is a movie that feels decidedly flat.
It felt like a script was written to give every checkbox their 5 minutes on screen, but the result is that JJ Abrams becomes Unkar Plutt. He delivers us a half portion. Just enough to address whatever grievance a fan had and keep the franchise going, but not enough for it to thrive. It was a safe move, with enough pandering that nearly everyone will walk out of this movie with something to like. But I think, in the end, very few people will count this among the best the franchise had to offer.