Egregious pacing and plot issues aside....it's not all bad

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2019)

I went in with low expectations given the reviews so maybe that coloured how I saw it. I agree with a comment I saw, that this feels like both of JJ's planned sequels squashed into one movie, while ignoring one of the major points of the previous film. The pacing is just awful. The first 10 minutes could have been half a movie and from there we're taken on a tour of a few new planets including an interplanetary Burning Man.
After a while of feeling angry at the pacing, I calmed down and started paying attention to what was good. Rey and Kylo's arc is continues in a satisfactory manner and concludes almost as well. The emperor, all things considered, was an interesting addition. He was clearly meant to be the big reveal at the end of the previous film, which could have been cool. Everything looks great obviously and the set pieces are as fun as usual.
I would put the blame for this trilogy's severe lack of direction, on both JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson equally. Say what you will about JJ Abrams' mystery box theory. It is silly, but you don't ret-con previously established intrigue simply because "it doesn't matter". Alright then Rian Johnson, what does matter? I think The Last Jedi failed to answer that. All it did was dump what had been set up in the first film but it didn't replace it with anything. That said, I would expect someone like JJ Abrams to be more than up to the challenge of building something meaningful from that point. Rather than that, he simply ret-cons the ret-con and says "so this stuff that the previous film said didn't matter, yeah it matters".