Can't care about what comes next

Rating: 5/10 (23 January 2018)

Much has been said about the minor and major failings of this movie, I'd like to focus on a single point: the characters don't work. I left the theater feeling empty and utterly unmotivated to watch the third installment of this trilogy. Upon reflection, I realize that, after seeing Luke's "death", we were left with four non-characters, for which destinies I barely care.
* Finn, a deserter, clearly with past trauma that is personified by Captain Phasma. Such a wasted opportunity to use this movie and develop upon his past, and maybe also shed some light on the happenings between Ep. VI and now, the growth of the New Order. Instead we're treated with an RPG-like side quest, complete with inferior story, inferior special effects, irrelevant consequences on the main plot and even an absurd "cinematic" briefing feat. Maz Kanata. Finn's arc is mainly the same as the first movie, going from coward to growing some courage to fight for his friends. His romance with Rose is so badly handled I'd prefer to forget about it.
* Rey's character, in my memory, seems non-existent on this movie, kind of a blur around whom "plot things" happen. Barely anything is discovered or developed around her motivations, story, fears, interests etc. Being born from unremarkable parents is not the main issue, being an unrelatable plot device is. Her scene at the cave felt like a special effects gimmick, which did little to shed any light on her character. It feels like the writers still don't know what to do with her.
* Poe's plot, incredibly, had the greatest potential here, reflecting on the classic heroes actions and the negative consequences to those around them. Unfortunately, his story is mainly obfuscated by the confusing plot around the fleet chase and the introduction of the unnecessary Admiral Holdo character. If the movie had taken it's time to properly establish a conflict between him and Leia, culminating with her sacrifice at the "lightspeed ram" scene, the emotional impact would have been tremendous, as a bonus we'd lose the Mary Poppins scene.
* Kylo still feels like a silly, angry and impusive kid, but now strangely capable of manipulation while killing Snoke, with witch the interaction was hardly developed. As an antagonist, he seems menancing enough, but the removal of Snoke and the sidelining of Hux on this movie leaves little to look forward in terms of interplay between the characters in the New Order.
Overall, for all it's length, this film seems incapable of taking the time to develop the characters, deeper scenes frequently get undercut by out of place humor or simply cut, like when Luke finds out Han has died. It feels like most of the character development happened off camera, while we were looking at cassinos. Much can be said about Luke's story here, but I think they at least tried to do something interesting to him, and I must confess I'd be much more interested in seeing a third movie about the "new" Luke than any of the other characters we were left with.