THE LAST JEDI expectedly bottoms out in the abysmal nadir in its story-line, only awaits a spark of new hope to ignite its retaliation next round

Rating: 7/10 (21 March 2018)

The prospect is bleak, this entire Episode VIII of STAR WARS saga is a concatenation of the Resistance forces' half-baked escaping plans from the claws of the indomitable fleet of the totalitarian First Order closely on their tail, so one has to hand it to Princess Leia Organa (Fisher, in her swan song) for still being able to bullishly encourage a handful of survivors in the coda that, paraphrasing here, they still have everything they need to start the rebellion from the scratch, attagirl!
Taking the rein from J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson continues the story right after THE FORCE AWAKEN, and assigns the triad of our new protagonists on different missions - Rey (Ridley), to recruit Luke Skywalker (Hamill) on an awe-inspiringly otherworldly island overlaid by the aura of the force and a Jedi temple, where she telepathically connects with Kylo Ren (Driver) and is confident that she can turn him to the bright side; a hot-to-trot Poe Dameron (Isaac) stays put on the main Resistance ship, and unwisely plots a coup against the surrogate leader Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Dern), when Leia is in recuperation after surviving an attack decimated other top brass; then Finn (Boyega), teamed with a low-rank, Asian-ethnic Resistance member Rose Tico (Tran), is sent to look for a code-breaker in the Canto Bight casino (a resplendent heaven for affluent warmongers and arms dealers), who can disable the First Order's tracking device, which doggedly shadows its quarry even during light speed universe. And amazingly, all goes awry, Rey's ganging up with Kylo Ren only helps him to usurp the throne from a pompous Supreme Leader Snoke (Serkis); Poe's coup is practically nugatory and he had better stay put, since Holdo has a viable exit route to operate, and the worst of all, is Finn and Rose's vacuous sally, not only are they suckered by a neutral-standing maverick code-breaker DJ (a golly relaxed del Toro), which stands for Don't Join, but a more devastating outcome is that the pursuers get wind of the Resistance's clandestine plan, mortality escalates, and there is blood on both Finn and Poe's hands for their poor judgement, yet everyone is too philosophical to moot that can of worms.
Designated as the middle section of a trilogy, there is little wonder THE LAST JEDI is prescribed as a plumb descent to an astronomically unfavorable preliminary to the final epic, but Johnson's stratagem is pretty unorthodox to a fault of severely undercutting our investment in those young heroes (peculiarly enough, not the antihero), meantime, we gallantly gird ourselves for the valediction of the old, legendary trinity (Han Solo, Luke and Leia), which renders the next chapter look pretty precarious from this angle.
Looking at the brighter side, it is illuminating that Rey's parentage doesn't entangled with a blinkered consanguineous linkage with the Skywalker clan, which speaks volumes that the force is not totally hardwired, it is up for grabs to all comers, as the final shots manifest. Also, an uncomely Adam Driver starts to really rally our support in his ascendancy, it is such gaiety to see him time and again telekinetically abuse General Hux (Gleeson in his most unabashed camp).
As a hallowed and well-loved Hollywood behemoth, which is too clunky and institutionalized to soup up with any unwonted tones, Johnson's effort is to say the very least, mildly laudable, under his fine-tuning, THE LAST JEDI expectedly bottoms out in the abysmal nadir in its story-line, only awaits a spark of new hope to ignite the impending, disproportionately heroic retaliation next round.