An disastrous end to messed up trilogy.

Rating: 4/10 (28 January 2020)

This film -- and trilogy, as a whole -- is really a giant mess. Abrams brought in new villains and hereos while basically trying to do a carbon copy of A New Hope with the Force Awakens. Questions about Rey continued to pile and Snoke as well, who was seemingly as powerful as Palpatine. After Johnson made his own film in the trilogy, in comes this film to say Return of the Jedi and what Vader did was all for nothing.
Palpatine is alive and has amassed a giant fleet of star destroyers with capabilities of destroying planets. What feels illogical is that he's been around controlling everything from Snoke to Ren all the while building up a Sith army. What is worse is that no one is shocked by the discovery that he is still present. In this film, we follow Poe, Rey and Finn go on a journey of what feels like a video game mission of completing specific quests. C3PO holds information of the former-Emperor's whereabouts. But his programming forbids talking in Sith code. In order to do so, we gotta reset him but we gotta go to a specific system to find a up-and-coming toy Disney can merchandise to do that.
After all the clues, battles, and badly done action sequences, Rey confronts Palpatine and it's very underwhelming. It has the feel that all this is doing is making Rey out to be the most powerful Jedi. Like more than Yoda or Anakin. But this whole saga was supposed to be about the Skywalker family. More specifically, the chosen one (Anakin) would bring balance to the force. A child who had a higher midichlorian count than Yoda. But forget all that. Rey can defeat Palpatine and it feels like Harry killing Voldemort and all Horcuxes have now been destroyed.
There is no defining moment in Rise of Skywalker anyone will be able to bring up later 5,10, 30 years from now because this isn't the type of movie. Characters are thrownaway, reduced screen time, reduced dialogue and it all feels cluttered up still. There's no direction and no connecting story to follow. Light saber battles are at a premium and the film merely feels like one long marketing commercial for new toys and kitchen accessories.
If I knew at the start of the decade that these three films were how they'd finish off the story of Skywalker, I would have skipped all of them. Hardcore fans and new young fans get a few seconds here and there for nostalgia peppered throughout the film(s). But this is not a good film in the saga. It leaves no lasting appeal to flock back to.