An exciting and emotional addition to the Star Wars universe

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2017)

In every way this film improves on its immediate prequel, The Force Awakens. I attribute that to the previous film's careful, almost shot-for-shot recreation of Episode IV, the original SW film. While I enjoyed TFA a great deal, and I understand the reasoning of essentially rebooting the franchise by reintroducing all its main themes and plot points, it did feel a bit over-familiar to a long-time fan. But The Last Jedi takes off from that beginning at top speed and delivers an exciting ride full of twists, dangers, spy missions, humor (rather a lot of that!), possible romance, and drama. Mark Hamill is excellent as a bitter and reclusive older Luke who slowly rediscovers his hope for the future. The new characters all step up to stronger roles, with an intriguing subplot between Rey and Kylo Ren and a great turn by new arrival Rose. There are important discussions on the workings of the Force and the place of the Jedi, and an ending that seems to leave the Resistance at its lowest ebb but contains great hope from unexpected sources. I did think it tried a bit too hard to be snarkily funny, and it plays very fast and loose with physics, but i don't think those are major flaws in a film that is so very much fun.