Too long, too...ugh

Rating: 4/10 (15 December 2017)

Rian Johnson really did a number on Star Wars, and it's not in a good way. First, the nonsensical premise of this film: the rebel fleet gets in over its head against the First Order, turns tail and jumps to hyperspace. The First Order fleet follows, and then it's a chase until the rebel ships run out of fuel because the First Order can track them through hyperspace. That's the main plot of the film: get away from the bad guys, and it's not super interesting.
The rebel fleet runs at sub-light speed and instead of splitting up and going in different directions, the fleet stays together to make them one giant target for the First Order guns. Yeah, brilliant tactician work it isn't, but Mr. Johnson thought that would be great for a plot. It's not. The First Order behaves stupidly as well by trailing the rebels instead of having a few ships jump ahead to blockade them. So that mess of idiocy is the backdrop.
Meanwhile, Luke and Rey are learning Jedi smackdown techniques on Luke's private island, and Finn and new girl Rose hatch some ridiculous plan to find a slicer to hack the First Order tracking system. Did I mention Finn and Rose just fly away from the rebel fleet on a ship to carry out their plan? Yet another ding-dong writing choice.
While Rey is training for a few hours with Luke (apparently he's developed a patented Learn-to-be-a-Jedi system that works instantly), the fleet is running away and Finn and Rose are working on recruiting their slicer. Then everyone goes back to put themselves in harms way and let the movie drag on some more until a climatic battle on Crait. And Luke pulls a remote-control Houdini to delay the battle and allow everyone to escape. That's right, Luke doesn't actually show up to battle, but he's there in spirit. Wonky.
To wrap up, we've got a waaaaay too long script, screwed up main plot, and a few interesting side scenes. Not good. The best part might be the Star Wars universe and the flavor of lightsabers and stormtroopers, but other than that, the writing is a mess.