Star Wars is running out of steam

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2017)

Critics have seen a different movie than the general audience. Their high ratings are quite baffling since The Last Jedi has very large plot holes, lacks the sense of humor of other installments and has a twist you could see coming from miles away.
As surprising as the Vader-father-reveal was in the original second movie, as obvious was the twist in this one. It is in fact so blatantly obvious that without it, we would be left without a bad guy in the next film... and you figure that out while watching, which means all immersion goes out the window instantly.
Ouch.
However, many people will probably forgive that. And in all fairness, there is a lot of entertainment to be had as well. The exchanges between Rey and Ren are excellent. The light sabres shine in this movie. And so does Mark Hamill.
But is also way too long, has unnecessary bits in it, truly gaping plot holes and largely plays out in space, meaning we don't get a lot of action on cool new planets. And when we finally do, it feels 'tagged on' for fan service.

This means the writers have created a serious problem for themselves. It's just not original anymore. Not only does this episode suffer from that, but so will number nine. We've lost a bit of SW soul here, which is likely to continue into the next installment.
There are times that I love everything about the SW universe. And there are times I just wished they had left it with the three movies from back in the day. This time around, I definitely feel the latter. If I would really try to nail all of this into one sentence I'd say... Star Wars is running out of steam.