Great addition to the Star Wars saga and set's the stakes of what is to come.

Rating: 7/10 (18 December 2017)

Like most people, I was hyped for this movie and really curious where they would take the Star Wars saga after the previous installment.
I really liked 'The Force Awakens' and the new characters it introduced, thought it to be a great setup for things to come.
The movie opens with a space battle where the remaining Resistance forces, led by Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher), struggle to escape from the massive fleet of the First Order. Beside leading the resistance to safety, Leia also has to deal with hot shots like pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) who have different ideas about her strategy and belive more in fighting back then running away. At the First Order side of the battle, Supreme leader Snoke is displeased with Kylo Ren's (Adam Driver) failure to defeat Rey (Daisy Ridley) on Starkiller Base and taunts and insult him, motivating him by fear to do better. Meanwhile, Rey has found the legendary Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and want him to train and guide her using her newfound powers. But Luke is unsettled by the strength of her powers, something he has seen once before..
I really liked this new addition to the Star Wars movie. All the main actors performed really well, especially Mark Hamill who I found even better now then in the classic movies. Adam Driver continues to impress me playing the conflicted Kylo Ren and Daisy Ridley takes her character to a new level. Her scenes with Hamill are excellent and there are some humorous moments in it to. There are some surprising elements in this movie which not everyone can appreciate but I liked them. This movie also does not answer every question some people might have had after the previous movie but I was not bothered by it. The original trilogy also did not answer everything and left things to the imagination of the viewer. The only thing I didn't like was one scene regarding Leia that looked a little silly and the 'side-quest' that Finn was send to do. Everything did come together nicely in the climax but Finn's quest took away to much attention from the main story and there were not enough main characters there to make it part of the main story.
Like many Star Wars movie, it's chuck-full of special effects and fast action scenes and this movie really delivers on that front. The battle scenes are great, the duels are great and the scenery looks beautiful. The only place that felt a little to generic to me was the planet where Finn is send to. It didn't look like another world and they could have made it more interesting or left it out. I also think this movie has the best Star Wars soundtrack to date. It always had great music (even the prequel trilogy had that) but this time I had the feeling it was even better.
Overall, The Last Jedi is an awesome Star Wars movie that takes the saga to a new direction and sets the stakes for an epic final in Episode IX.