Well, it's Star Wars...and not the worst of the bunch!

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2019)

If you're a Star Wars fan like me, and have seen all of the movies, you probably have your favorite installment. Many love Empire Strikes Back, many detest Phantom Menace. Well, this movie, for me, falls somewhere in between. At the very least it didn't knock A New Hope, Empire Strikes back and The Force Awakens as my top 3 Star Wars films off the list. My apologies to those who have said this is the best of ALL the Star Wars films, in my opinion it wasn't. I even struggled with giving this film a 6 or an 8, so I settled on a 7 (which is probably too generous).
The good news is J.J. Abrams corrected what many didn't like about The Last Jedi, much like George Lucas course corrected in his follow up to The Phantom Menace. That said, Abrams introduced a few faults at the same time. Specifically, Abrams experimented a bit with the story line, and with things that we already know about (like the force) in a way that doesn't quite add up when seeing this together with the other films. It was a risky move, but one that I think was worth taking.
Now for the bad news. Critics have suggested this film tries to hard to please everyone. Fan Service seems to be a term that keeps popping up with this film. Perhaps. But for me the bad news is that while the first and last 30-or-so minutes of the film was cinematically spectacular, I found myself bored through much of the body of the film. I think that could be because this Disney installment used a lot of the same devices we are used to seeing like an old crutch...or Yoda's walking stick. Or, It could be because I was too distracted by the way Carrie Fisher's old footage of Princess Leia interacted with the characters to focus on the story line so that I could follow along. Or, more likely, the story was just plain weak and ill-conceived. Whatever it was that bored me, being a die-hard fan, I stuck with it for the big pay-off at the movie's climax. And, Rise of Skywalker certainly delivered in the end.
So here's the bottom line. To enjoy this film, you need to:

be a die-hard Star Wars fan to stick it, thick and thin.
check all the logic at the door
be open to a new story line, even if it doesn't quite fit with what we've seen before

If this sounds like something you can do, then you just might rise up and have a good time by the time you leave the theatre, like I did.