I enjoyed it, but with a sizeable asterisk

Rating: 7/10 (8 January 2020)

Rian Johnson's Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) was a film which divided critics and audiences to an unusual degree - on Metacritic it has a critical score of 85/100 (the second-highest in the franchise), but its audience score is only 4.4/10 (the lowest in the franchise). In their (predominantly negative) reviews of Rise of Skywalker, many critics who championed Last Jedi posit that the film was a great work of art, unfairly maligned by a toxic fanbase. And certainly, there was an element of that - the racist and sexist abuse that Kelly Marie Tran took from such fans was shameful. However, these critics essentially argue that if you didn't like Last Jedi, the only possible explanation is that you're a misogynistic Neanderthal. They don't mention the horrid screenplay that spends 40 minutes on a side-quest that has nothing to do with the rest of the film; they don't mention how Holdo (Laura Dern) withholding her plan from Poe (Oscar Isaac) makes not a lick of sense; they don't mention Luke (Mark Hamill) throwing away his lightsaber (to hell with that scene); they don't mention how Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) was turned into comic relief; and they certainly don't mention resurrected flying space Jedi (to hell with that scene too). The fact is, the film is an absolute mess at both a structural and thematic level.
And so we have Rise of Skywalker, which is a course correction if not a flat-out apology - Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is once more wearing his mask and the Knights of Ren are back; the Jedi child seen at the end of Last Jedi is never mentioned; Rey's (Daisy Ridley) parentage, so casually dismissed in Last Jedi, is once again crucial; and Rose (Tran) is barely seen. Indeed, Rise is more of a sequel to Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) than it is to Last Jedi, one or two major plot points notwithstanding. And although I certainly enjoyed it as a spectacle (it looked and sounded exceptional in 3D IMAX), there's no doubt it's a deeply flawed piece of work. It's the kind of film that feels like it was created by a computer algorithm or a corporate committee trying to tick as many boxes as possible, concerned primarily with trying to please everyone without offending anyone. And this is only one of two impossible tasks it assigns itself.
Picking up the story a few months after the events of Last Jedi, Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) has returned, revealing that he's been manipulating events from behind-the-scenes for years. As the film begins, Kylo Ren is making his way to Palpatine's base on the 'hidden' planet Exegol, which can only be reached with the use of a powerful Sith Wayfinder, of which there are only two in existence. Seeing Palpatine as a threat to his leadership of the First Order, Ren is planning to kill him. However, rather than doing so, he watches in awe as Palpatine reveals a massive armada of hundreds of fearsomely powerful Xyston-class Star Destroyers. And so, the Resistance set out in a mission to confront and defeat him.
Directed by Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, with a script by Abrams and Chris Terrio, the biggest problem with both this film and this new trilogy as a whole is lack of narrative through-lines. At no point during Rise did it ever feel like the culmination of a nine-film arc. It barely felt like the culmination of a three-film arc. Not only is there a disconnect between the three films in the trilogy, but there's a sizeable disconnect between this trilogy and the previous two. Love them or hate them, the prequels not only form a coherent and logical trilogy, but (Midi-chlorian foolishness aside), they also form a coherent and logical six-film arc with the original trilogy. George Lucas has spoken about when you watch the originals, it's Luke's story, but when you watch the six films, it's Anakin's story. When you factor in this third trilogy, however, despite Disney dubbing the nine films the "Skywalker Saga", the overarching story essentially becomes Palpatine's. But, whilst his presence is woven intricately into the fabric of the first two trilogies, his appearance here is...less so. This has the effect of making the nine-film sequence feel unbalanced, with the last three never really feeling like a valid continuation of the previous six. At best, they feel like a spin-off, with thematic connections and recurring characters occasionally shoehorned in to try to establish narrative continuity.
All of which leaves Rise with not one, but two impossible tasks - 1) to somehow conclude this trilogy in such a way that it also works as the satisfying closing chapter to the nine-film Skywalker Saga, and 2) to somehow conclude this trilogy despite having to abandon and retcon much of what the second film did.
Of course, a big question here is whether or not Disney had a specific narrative plan going into this thing, with many arguing that the lack of coherence between the three films proves that they did not. But that seems somewhat unbelievable to me. Rather, it's more likely that Abrams laid the groundwork for a coherent three-film arc, but Johnson ignored (if not necessarily undermined) much of that preparatory work. This also feeds into the criticism that the first hour of Rise is too plot-heavy and expositionary; which could be explained if Abrams was essentially in a position of having to cram two films' worth of plot into one film.
The big thing here is the return of Palpatine, which has been accused of being completely arbitrary, a desperate bit of fan service from a filmmaker trying to win back fans, and which doesn't make a whole lot of narrative sense. I can certainly sympathise with those sentiments, and I agree that his return negates Vader's sacrifice at the end of Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). However, there were hints in Force Awakens that there was a hidden big bad, and that that big bad was Palpatine. To explain any more would constitute spoilers for Rise, but there are videos on YouTube posted shortly after the release of Force Awakens which speculate that Palpatine might be involved.
There are some smaller issues with the film, however. For example, it treats death less than reverentially, with multiple characters dying, only to return in some form or another, which cheapens and undermines any inherent risk in the story. The quartet of main characters also remain as insipid as they were in the previous two films - Rey is still a reluctant Jedi trying to wrap her head around everything; Finn (John Boyega) is still a token good guy who used to be bad; Poe is still Han Solo-lite; and Ren is still a moody emo who hates his parents. The biggest problem is that the film is built around the Resistance trying to get to Exegol. To do so they need a Wayfinder, but to get that they need this other thing, but to find that they need to go here, but to do that they need a doohickey, but to get that they have to...you get the picture.
For all that, however, I have to admit, I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker for the most part. There certainly are a lot of callbacks but I thought most were fairly well-handled, logical enough and reasonably organic. Aesthetically, as one would expect, everything looks and sounds great, particularly Palpatine's base on Exegol. Abrams and cinematographer Dan Mindel shoot these scenes like it's a horror movie - deep chiaroscuro shadows, ominous caverns disappearing in the background, unnaturally powerful lightening flashing from above. This tone is helped immeasurably by Rick Carter's production design, which really sells the vast otherworldliness of the place. Equally important here is David Acord's sound design, which features a constant chatter of unearthly and disembodied voices, like a thousand ghosts all whispering at once.
The whole thing has a dark vibe the likes of which we've never really seen in Star Wars, and the scenes here are probably the best in the film. The scenes showing Rey and Ren speaking to one another via Force Dyad are also excellent. These scenes were easily the best part of Last Jedi, and they're just as good here, as we see the background of one character's location appearing behind the other character, with the backgrounds shifting from one to the other as the scenes play out. A lightsaber fight makes particularly good use of the Dyad, with events in one location having an unexpected effect on events in the other.
So, all things considered, I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker and found it a vast improvement over Last Jedi. However, having said that, it never touches greatness, with everything feeling workshopped and focus-grouped to within an inch of its life. It looks great, and it's both exciting and entertaining, but it's also safe and predictable. And sure, you might say that fans rejected Last Jedi because it took too many risks, and now they reject Rise because it doesn't take enough, and there's probably some truth to that. But the fact is that it just never feels like a closing chapter. I enjoyed it whilst I was watching it and it's a decent enough Star Wars movie, with some terrific individual scenes. But as the final entry of a 42-year-old franchise (the most popular franchise in any medium in human history), it is, perhaps inevitably, a little disappointing.