Nonsense popcorn, worth a watch with lowered expectations

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2019)

No spoilers. For reference: here's my ratings of all episodes of the saga:
New Hope: 9/10 - Empire: 10/10 - RotJ: 9/10
Phantom: 5/10 - Clones: 5/10 - RotS: 6/10
Awakens: 6/10 - Last Jedi: 7/10 - RoS: 6/10
The originals are recognised classics for all the well-known reasons - note: only talking about the original cuts (aka despecialized), the 'special' editions bring the scores down a notch. The Disney-trilogy is only slightly better than the prequel-trilogy: it has more energy, feels somewhat cinematic, has better acting and offers plenty eye-candy. The prequels do other things better than Disney: effective worldbuilding and, in theory, a fantastic deep story. But both these trilogies suffer greatly in the writing/editing, and Rise of Skywalker takes the prize for being the episode with the most trashy dumb logic of all. Many reviews go into heavy detail as to the specifics, I'll just stick to a list of the pros and cons of the film overall:
Pros:

the fast pace never let up, it wasn't boring.

i'm not a fan of CGI, but it at least looked pretty good for the most part here. Real-modelling is superior still, and there was some of that too. Generally the visual/audio production was of a high quality.

Rey, Finn and Poe while being all a little thinly drawn are at least watchable. As main characters they don't annoy you, or make you cringe (hello prequels) and even at times the rapport between them is likeable and believable.

Adam Driver confirmed he is the star of this trilogy. It needed at least one. His acting skills outshone the teen-emo writing. The prequels had Ian McDiarmid shining amongst the stilted dross, while the classics had a handful of bright stars (one of the reasons why the originals remain vastly superior).

the final scenes with the Emperor, chanting and all the rest was of course daft but very pleasing aesthetically. Some interesting dark ideas there which could be explored in new stories.

Cons:

the incessant pace is also a con: it makes the entire film feel like a breathless 2-hour long trailer. Sure, not boring...but you don't feel enthralled, the viewer is just along for the ride.

lots of eye-rolling moments, either to do with the internal logic or shoe-horned characterisation which felt unnatural. Some general examples: the First Order are cartoon-baddies, not believably-serious like the original Empire officers / Rey is too over-powered (and no, the plot's development doesn't redeem this satisfactorily enough) / the fetch-quest nature of the plot made the story feel like it belongs in an average videogame / the deification of Leia felt 'forced' / the Force can be manipulated to Marvel-like levels / the regular call-backs to the classic films were a bit much...

there was no real feeling of peril...like with many modern blockbusters the main protagonists feel artificially invincible, with far more improbable escapes than we had in 70's/80's movies. Your suspension of disbelief just gives up as you mindlessly watch superhero-like antics every few minutes.

similarly, there was no real emotional connection to anyone or anything. One big reason for this is there being no quiet reflective talky scenes for us to get to know the characters better. In Return of the Jedi, we had time for those despite all the epic action going on, like for example Vader's reflective discussion with Luke on his new lightsaber and it being pointless to resist..."my son". Vader's humanity grew at the same time as the palpable threat of the Emperor, crucial qualities which made the final scenes in the throne room so much more powerful. The Disney trilogy, and especially Rise of Skywalker, fails to provide us with such emotive setups, or rather when it thinks it does so, it's done too hectic, or too 'on-the-nose', for us to really believe it.

Conclusion: if you view this with low-expectations: turn your brain off - in your head-canon treat it as fan-fiction if you must - and you're in the mood for mindless blockbuster spectacle, then Rise of Skywalker is more recommended than most sci-fi blockbusters of the last decade. It's with this damning-with-faint-praise that it scrapes the 6/10, the minimum score required to be 'worth a watch' in my book.