I Had Much Higher Expectations,

Rating: 6/10 (18 January 2018)

Star Wars: Episode VIII- The Last Jedi is a good movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a talented cast. It certainly has a ton of action and gorgeous spectacle that we have come to expect from this franchise, there are many great fight sequences, in particular one towards the end that was breathtaking. The cast are all in great form, especially Mark Hamill, it is an absolute honour to see him return to the role of Luke Skywalker after all these years, and he delivers what I would consider to be the best performance of his career.
However, the film did leave me with many, many questions left unanswered and decisions that personally upsetted me as a fan of this franchise. Rian Johnson clearly had a vision and direction he wanted to take this series that was obviously different from anyone before him, which is great, but I found he disrespected what J.J. Abhrams had initiated with Force Awakens. First off, the decision to kill off Snoke and Captain Phasma was a poor move, these characters were barely established in either movies and we are left feeling like we never got to know who they truly are, cause we did not. The two characters probably have about ten minutes of screentime combined in this movie and Last Jedi, which is ridiculous for characters, both played by very talented, wasted actors, that had so much potential.
Luke is also used poorly in this movie, as good as Hamill was, even he agrees that his character was treated unfairly. He remains on this desserted planet for the entire movie, complains and dishonours a lot of what he previously stood for in the other movies, it was simply not what I wanted from Luke's return, I could not wait to see him in action again, and we never did. Rey also gets treated unfairly in this movie, pretty much writing off any chances of us getting a proper origin story for her. It seemed like Rian Johnson was giving a middle finger to the fans by getting Kylo Ren to say "You're nothing" and move on from there, all out hopes and excitement for discovering more about this character tarnished. I was also really looking forward to seeing who Benicio Del Toro was in this movie, but they gave him a character who did not fit in to the Star Wars universe in any way, shape or form. DJ's dialogue, clothing and name was simply in no way right for this world.
Could have been so much better. I was routing for The Last Jedi, but it continued to let me down, obviously watch it if you follow the franchise, but do not expect perfection.

Rey begins exploring her newfound powers while The First Order goes to war against the Resistance.

Best Performance: Mark Hamill