With great CGI doesn't come great story telling

Rating: 3/10 (19 August 2018)

Daisy Ridley bears a resemblance to another well known British actress: "People have always said that I look like Keira Knightley," she told Yahoo. "It's like, 'Why do i have to be like someone else?'". The irony being in the Star Wars universe Keira Knightley was SabÃ©; PadmÃ© Amidalas decoy, protection, and loyal bodyguard, pretending to be the future mother of Luke and Leia during the Battle of Naboo, etc, while the Queen was off doing other things. For all we know, Anakin and her could have hooked up, had kids, and she's Reys grandmother, making Rey and Kylo cousins!
That's how much this film kept my attention; that I came up with that!
Yes, the cinematography is amazing. Plenty of wide open shots of beautiful countryside, vibrant coloured landscapes and natural shots used to evoke the spiritual side of the Force. Add to that the sets used to show the splendour of Canto Bight versus the stark nature of Snokes throne room. And the opening space battle that might evoke memories of old World War 2 plane movies, just set in space. It looked good.
The music was pretty under played; the main Star Wars theme was liberally splashed around, but there was no building to crescendos, or much sense of any attempt to build tension.
Too be honest, they could have an entire cast of Oscar winners and they'd have been hard to get much out of the script! Most of this film might as well have been in 2D; a slow moving car chase that should have been over in minutes if it wasn't for the massive plot holes. When fans are used to epic space battles and dramatic life and death Jedi/Sith encounters that leave you wondering how it will end, everything felt very clunky and thrown together. Even having Frank Oz in the cast doesn't really add anywhere near as much wonderment as it did for Return Of The Sith.
I mean, I know Disney is like a Sith Lord strangling someone when it comes to squeezing every dime out of the franchise, but it is annoying that when you should be trying to figure out the standard question of how the Rebel Alliance is going to escape the massive armada - think Return of the Jedi - that's constantly chasing it, but you end up contemplating what toys they're going to make out of those Vulptex or BB-9E!
We want PadmÃ© Amidala, not SabÃ© pretending to be her.