They pulled the rabbit out of the hat.

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2019)

If The Force Awakens was wandering in the dark, and The Last Jedi was falling down a pointless hole, somehow the writers of this movie pulled the rabbit out of the hat in the end and wrote themselves out of the situation Lucasfilm had gotten themselves into at this point. That creative feat alone is part of the amazement of this movie. It has more heart than the last two combined. Daisy Ridley shows that she was the right person for the role and is the centerpiece to making the movie work, and she pulls it of better than you ever could have guessed, especially from the undeveloped "Mary Sue" affliction she had in the last movie.
It is not perfect: it tries to tell 4 hours of movie in just 2.5 hours. I am not sure if it is great, but it certainly is good, and the best movie Abrams has made to date. Its herculean accomplishment is that is a genuine ending that successfully ties the last three and all nine movies together. Attempting that and doing it successfully, much less coming from the mess of The Last Jedi, deserves a round of applause.