A Good yet Disappointing Movie

Rating: 6/10 (19 December 2017)

"The Force Awakens" was an average movie at best with some redeeming qualities such as the lightsaber battle, the character of Kylo Ren, and the reveal of the mysterious, in hiding Luke Skywalker, the man who took down the Empire and the Emperor that stood with it. The final scene of TFA was so dramatic and exciting that it left myself and many others hyped out of our minds for the start of this movie. Then when we first see Luke he throws the lightsaber behind him off a cliff, the lightsaber that has been was used by his father, and was given to him by his teacher, this spectical of Luke's past is thrown off the cliff without any questions. I think Luke throwing this lightsaber is an interesting metaphor for this movie as a whole, build up, some of it fantastic, only to lead to a bogstandard payoff. To keep this review interesting I'll start with Pros then move to cons.
Kylo Ren: I personally liked his character in TFA and found him the most interesting part of that movie, this movie only deepened my interest in him as a character, I found him so compelling, acted superbly by Adam Driver. His anger and rage is very reminiscent of Anakin before Darth Vader, yet done far better, his dynamic with Rey and the whole connection in the force between the two is outstanding and is shot in a way to reflect that.
Rey: I hated Rey in TFA, she was wooden and one sided, seemed very uninteresting to me, so to my surprise I really liked her in this movie, she was the second best character in this film, much to my surprise, and as I stated her and Kylos dynamic is by far the best bit of this film. Her relationship with Luke was also very engaging.
Poe: I thought Poe was very under-used in TFA, and I was glad they gave him a more prominent role in this film, from his expert flying skills to his morals and way of doing things, he was enjoyable to watch, notice the term enjoyable. It would have been better to see him integrate with actual interesting character and not Admiral Purple hair or the unfortunate lazy performance by the late Carrie Fisher. This would have brought a whole new dynamic to the film and made it at least 30% better than it was.
Luke: When he was on screen, it was cool to see Luke walk around and talk about the Jedi wanting to end, but it all seemed a bit out of character. However it was kind of redeemed by some moments, such as his fight with Kylo Ren. One scene that I found really nostalgic was when he saw R2D2, and he joyfully exclaims "R2", and that was a glimpse of the Luke we all know and love, it was almost as if you were teleported back to the OT again and saw Luke how he was originally portrayed.
Kylo and Rey teaming up: This was undoubtedly the best scene in this film, maybe even all the star wars films, when Kylo kills snoke and teams up with Rey to fight these Guards, the choreography here was just insane and seeing the two in action really made me excited for where it was going. Although minutes after this phenomenal fight and set-up, they ruin it all, I'll discuss that in the cons though.
Moving to the cons, these cons are primarily more missed opportunities than cons, (except that god-awful casino planet set-piece) without these, 'The Last Jedi' could have been a seriously great Film.
Captain Phasma: I did not care for her character in TFA, I did not care she was underused and she was completely forgettable and I did not understand where all this "Phasma is a bad-ass" crap came from, what annoyed me in this film was how they brought her back, somehow she survived the base explosion in 7 but that's a topic for another day, for ten minutes again, just to be killed off by Finn, she served absolutley no purpose to the story and I honestly forgot she was even in this movie, why in gods-name did Gwendoline Christie appear in all these press tours if she is in the movie for 5 minutes, lost to me.
Finn: Finn was very likeable character in TFA, whos comedy worked all of the time, and was so charasmatic that he stole every scene, whos idea was it to completley underuse him in this film? Why would you include all of this crap slapstick disney comedy in the film but not include anything from Finn except a prequel worthy set-piece that serves no purpose rather than a political statement from Kathleen Kennedy. Speaking of this set-piece...
Casino planet/anti-capitalism propaganda: This whole scene was a complete mess, it is almost like at last minute they went, oh wait a second we forgot to get Finn to do something, let's give him a gambling world to go sit in that serves no purpose in the grand scheme of things? Or even the very contained already story, I won't make a seperate section for Rose, as the only reason she exists is to promote anti-animal abuse, which would be fine anywhere else except star wars, I am all for animal rights 100% but that doesn't mean it should be included in a star wars movie, what Rian Johnson, a talented director, was thinking is lost to me.
To finish off, the most spectacular misstep in star wars history, even worse than the prequels, was the fact that Rey did not Join Kylo. They spent this whole movie developing a connection between these two, making for an incredible telepathic sequence in where you can see the two characters having some form of emotional communication next to a fireplace, where Kylo physically appears in front of Rey and they touch hands, that moment was genius directing, Rey goes so far as to nearly kill Luke to go and 'Redeem' Kylo, Kylo saves Rey and kills snoke, they have an awesome battle together, but as soon as the fight finishes, any hope for creativity for the rest of the movie is lost, why would Rey not join Kylo, its obvious that they have a bond with eachother, it would have been the most interesting twist ever in star wars, a sith with a jedi teaming up to rule the galaxy, but instead Rian decided to say "Nah let's just have it be a generic and standard good vs bad story", now whether that was failure on Rian's part or disney saying that he couldn't make it that deep and spectacular is unknown. Either way I cannot understand why this wasn't done.
Holdo: AKA Pink hair lady, was the most useless character to ever be put in star wars, she served no purpose, why wasn't Admiral Ackbar the one to fly the ship into the star destroyer, that would have had an actual emotional impact on people rather than this hollow character who for some reason hid the plan from everyone.
In conclusion, this movie was a good film, filled with great moments, where this film fails is where it builds you up for something colossal, then just says "Nah we're good we'll stick to a generic story thanks, good guys prevail". There are also a few moments that could be great, but are sacrificed for comedy, which is disappointing. As a side note, how did 12 people on a resistance ship outrun and effectivley destroy half of the first order, why are they so incompetent.