Still not great, but an improvement over Episode 7

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2019)

This movie had more of a "Star Wars" feel than Episode 7 did. By that, I mean it invoked a little more wonder and charm with Star Wars elements rather than solely relying on nostalgia to carry the film.
As entertaining as the throne room fight scene was, it didn't make very much sense for the good guy(s) to be so experienced in sword combat, especially after what was seen at the end of Episode 7. And it's inexcusable to disintegrate the guard's knife with CGI.
The entire casino sequence was entirely unnecessary. It had absolutely nothing to do with the plot, adding nothing except an extreme treehugging element to the movie.
The humor is horrendously overexplained to guarantee that no one will be laughing, and it's entirely out of place in a Star Wars movie compared with the humor in any of the preceding films.
Several people complained about Luke, but I personally didn't see anything wrong with his character. It was believable with how he behaved in Episode 4, and it's possible that Luke has reverted back to that character after the original trilogy's events brought a supposed peace.
But even despite all of the bad aspects, the remainder of the movie still had that Star Wars feeling that kept the film enjoyable.