Professional reviewers seem to be clueless

Rating: 4/10 (16 December 2017)

The Last Jedi for me was a disappointment. I went in expecting it to be a great Star
Wars movie because the critics said it is a great Star Wars movie. I would rate it somewhere between Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith. It does not live up to the original trilogy and was considerably less emotionally engaging than the Force Awakens. Rogue One puts it to shame. The only real thing it has going for it is that the scenes are visually spectacular.
First, the story is unoriginal and is a mishmash of stuff we've seen in previous Star Wars and other films. For example, the Rey/Kylo confrontation with Snoke in his throne room was a far inferior version of the Palpatine/Vader/Luke scene from the Return of the Jedi. The apparently climactic battle in Crait looked just like the Hoth battle from Empire Strikes Back. The entire sequence of Finn and Rose and their escape from the casino planet reminded me of the prequels (and ends up to be completely useless for the plot line). Finn and Rose and BB8 sneaking onto Snoke's ship disguised as First Order officers was a rehash of the same scene from Rogue One.
The last stand of the Resistance in the old base on Crait was a poor rip-off of the Helms Deep scene from the Lord of the Rings. The last remaining Resistance cruiser trying to escape from the First Order by making multiple light speed jumps was just like Battlestar Gallactica (the remake). And the First Order, with it's massive star destroyers and weapons can't even get close enough to the Resistance cruiser to blow it up? And Luke showing up in the final scene to battle Kylo Ren only for Kylo to find out Luke is just an apparition? How many times have we seen such scenes? I'd rather see Luke show up in person and kick ass. That would have been very satisfying. But then, Episode IX would lose it's main villain. OK, so it was just a plot device?
I didn't like the characters much. Rey and Kylo are fine and the actors are convincing. Yes, Hamil does a great job, but Luke is basically reduced to a pathetic character in a depressive funk who goes off to die on a deserted island (populated only by a bunch of CGI creatures) because his new Jedi academy is destroyed by Kylo. Doesn't seem to be like Luke or any hero. Hamil was right that he disagrees with everything Rian Johnson did with his character.
Snoke? After all the speculation about who he is, he gets killed off after 10 minutes of screen time so we never get to find out (or Disney was so intellectually lazy, they didn't even bother to come up with a convenient back story). So he ends up just being this decrepit, deformed old man who happens to have a menacing voice.
Rey? Yeah, Ridley's a good actress, but after all the fascination about her parentage (is she the daughter of Luke? Kenobi? Even Palpatine?), she ends up being just the daughter of Jakku junk dealers? So why does she have such tremendous force powers that she can take out 10 of Snoke's personal guards and move 500 boulders to free the resistance? Maybe this won't be explained either in Episode IX.
Rose? Why did they cast an unattractive, overweight Asian woman as an uncompelling and unconvincing character to become Finn's side kick and love interest?? Because they had to give something for Finn to do and Disney figured that after casting a bunch of white actors, a black and then a Hispanic actor, they needed to cast an Asian actress to solve Hollywood's diversity problem? Believe me, as an Asian American, I have no problem with Asians being cast for major movie roles, but not when they serve as token minorities.
Leia? The critics said Carrie Fisher did a great job (they had to, I guess, out of respect because of her passing), but she spend much of the movie doing nothing important (with an apparent speech impediment) and mainly looking extremely concerned and worried. Then the rest of the movie, she is in a coma. Great way of utilizing an iconic character!
I guess if the critics had panned the movie, I might have walked out saying "it wasn't that bad, it was actually entertaining." But since they raised my expectations to such an extent, I could only leave with a sour taste in my mouth.