Breathe. Just breathe...

Rating: 5/10 (15 December 2017)

"This is not the way the Force works", Han Solo tells Finn in The Force Awakens. This statement couldn't be more true for a lot of stuff we see happening in The Last Jedi: Leia surviving the deep freeze of space vacuum and flying back into her spaceship like some kind of Marvel superhero; Force users projecting themselves across the galaxy, not simply as holograms but also physically (Rey & Kylo touch hands, Luke's lightsaber clashes with Kylo's, Yoda's ghost burns down the tree); Rey and Kylo still being able to connect telepathically after Snoke (who supposedly was the one who created the mental bridge between them) gets killed; Snoke not being able to read Kylo's true intentions and dying like a Dark Side rookie, even though he earlier seemed to be way more powerful than his apprentice; Kylo and Rey (both carrying unprecedented raw strength) having a hard time to fight a bunch of pretorian guards (who might be well trained and armed but don't have any Force powers whatsoever); and, perhaps most importantly, Force sensitive nobodies needing absolutely no training and experience to reach a level Obi Wan Kenobi never managed to even dream of. None of those things make sense, even if we accept that the Force is "so much bigger" than what we had taken for granted so far.
Force discrepancies (and disturbances) aside, there were many plot holes and awkward storylines in this movie: why does the First Order fleet follow the Resistance remnants "out of range" (occasionally firing a blast or two, while waiting for them to run out of fuel) when they are perfectly capable of surrounding and easily destroying them? What's the point of Finn and Rose going all the way to a casino planet (amidst a crucial space chase), only to find someone else than the guy they were looking for? (and what a waste to use Benicio Del Toro for such a shallow and stereotypical part). Why invest on heroic actions that don't pay off? (like not destroying the -super slow moving- canon, or Rey not turning Kylo back to the Light side). Why should we care about Vice Admiral Holdo's sacrifice, when she had so little screen time? (for the most part of which we were led to believe she is a coward and a traitor). How come Kylo Ren bought Luke's decoy when he saw that he magically survived all that firepower and was using the very same lightsaber that was cut in two just a few minutes ago? Who the hell was Snoke? Seriously, you can't build up the hype on such a mysterious super villain in Ep. VII just to get rid of him that easily in VIII, especially when you never tell us where exactly he came from and how come he is such a powerful Dark Side user (without ever being a Sith Lord or something). And what's with Luke's 'hologram' having a freshly trimmed and dyed beard that made him look like Chuck Norris in the Expendables? It was so distracting (for no reason) that the emotional impact of him standing up against the First Order walkers and redeeming himself was greatly minimized.
The whole story seems to rely entirely on plot twists for the sake of plot twists and (well made) action-packed sequences for the sake of pop-corn consumption. Perhaps all the hype with the red color in The Last Jedi marketing strategy didn't have that much to do with blood or Sith lightsabers, rather than the color of a huge herring, that was elaborately constructed just to troll Star Wars fans across the universe.
As for the comedy, yes, it was way too much (to the point of making the movie look like an expensive Star Wars parody), but didn't bother me as much as the rest of the logical fallacies (that are still fallacies even in a sci-fi movie). Adding to that Luke's character development (Jedi Master turning a loser hermit that milks alien cows after having cowardly and unsuccessfully attempted to kill his own nephew) makes The Last Jedi insulting to the millions of people who were expecting to watch a true heir to The Empire Strikes Back dark legacy. Even Luke's death carries little emotional impact compared to Han Solo's death, and Luke was the protagonist of the original trilogy and the key factor in how the handful of Resistance members (his sister included) escape. Not to mention Rey's secondary involvement in that escape (Chewie does all the crazy flying himself and all she has to do is lift some rocks after Luke and Kylo's final confrontation is over in her absence). Oh, and guilt-ridden Chewie turning vegan because of a porg's watery eyes? Please...
We can complain as much as we like for some of George Lucas' creative decisions (Jar Jar included), but at least the first 6 episodes of Star Wars were bound together by a coherent vision. What appears to have happened in this new trilogy is that Rian Johnson didn't like that much the storyline and characters that JJ Abrams and his team had created, so he decided to waste key heroes and villains, make fun of others that fans hold sacred, and eventually release a film that even though it looks like it belongs in the Star Wars universe, story-wise it belongs someplace else entirely (which is not even a feel-good Disney universe).
The only reason I was so generous in my rating is that I'm way too much of a Star Wars fan to trash The Last Jedi completely, plus the fact I intend to watch it once more, in case I suddenly realize it all makes sense now and I was the one with the problem because I had expected something totally different.
P.S. The one story element in this film that I found positive is the political allegory of the rich profiting from war at the expense of the suffering poor. However, even that could have been conveyed without the cheesy Oliver Twist dressed orphans that have Force abilities they only use to play with brooms.