Surpassed my expectations. But not without faults.

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2019)

No Star Wars film is without faults. But The Rise of Skywalker has surpassed my expectations and made me proud to be a Star Wars fan again.
*spoiler-free*
For the first time in a while, there is a Star Wars movie that truly makes my eyebrows raise in astonishment. You know the scene I'm talking about. How long has it been in a Star Wars movie where I was genuinely unsure how things were gonna play out, amazed at the direction things could go, and somewhat scared for the kids in the audience. Though everything is okay in the end, for a few minutes my eyes were wide with true entertainment (and possible sadism.)
The addition of Palpatine raps the franchise up in a nice little bow. Though his entrance is a bit late in the trilogy, Abrams did the best with what he had. Palpatine is not wasted one bit in this movie for everyone's benefit. He is truly the polar negative that steered this movie in the right direction. Adding a pure Cambellian villain of pure evil to go with the complex characters in this movie.
And there are a lot of characters! New and old who found their way into the film. At times it can be a bit distracting trying to remember everyone's names. However, despite this, some personality always makes it into the story making none of the characters feel flat or boring.
The visuals of this movie are stunning. The power of CGI can take people out of mass-marketed films. But J.J. Abrams pulls off his classic shtick of turning sci-fi films into works of art. Beautiful and uncompromising to the rest of the story. Keeping the franchise timeless and glorious as ever.
However, this film is far from perfect. The beginning is shaky and somewhat unalluring to the rest of the story. The emotions expressed by the actors can at times feel unnatural and somewhat robotic in their lack of context to the rest of the story. As though the actors themselves don't understand "why" they are supposed to feel a certain way within a scene.
The plot is rather fast-paced, moving from location to location, plot-point to plot-point (sometimes literally) within a few seconds. It can feel like Abrams is trying to give us as much "movie" as possible in as little time as possible.
I have seen some people criticizing this movie for giving a lot of fan-service which can take one out of the story. But I feel like there can be good fan-service and bad fan-service. It feels good to be delivered some answers to questions we've has since the trilogy began. Delivering on some misnomers made in the original trilogy can also be rather "awarding" ;) The ending may seem rather over-the-top but to be fair Star Wars is somewhat known for it's bigger than ever finales.
*cough...half-hour trench run...cough*
But this film unmistakably lands on a high note.
All in all, I was happy with this installment to the Star Wars franchise. I think The Rise of Skywalker can connect a lot of Star Wars fans and will be discussed for years to come.