A Betrayal, and not a Star Wars film

Rating: 5/10 (2 May 2018)

The New Order has the Republic, now the Rebellion, on the run. General Leia Organa's small resistance force has been discovered. Their only hope is Force-newbie Rey finding hermit-like Luke Skywalker and persuading him to pass on his Jedi knowledge to a new generation.
I must start by saying that I hate togive spoilers, but it is difficult to assess this film fairly without doing so to some extent.
The Force Awakens, episode VII, was a huge commercial success, but was - fairly - accused of revisiting the story from A New Hope. Does episode VIII avoid that accusation? Up to a point. You don't have to look too closely to see echoes of The Empire Strikes Back, though.
The Force Awakens successfully passed the torch to a new generation, but left many unanswered questions. The Last Jedi opens with a terrific action set-piece - dammit, Poe IS a hotshot flyboy! - but then we want to have some questions answered. Who is Rey and why is she connected to the Force? Why did Kylo Ren turn rogue? Who is Snoke? How did his connection to the Force arise? Why does he have those hideous scars? How did he get his hooks into Ren? What does Finn do next?
This film addresses NONE of these questions except in the most unsatisfactory way.
It provides spectacular visuals which, of course, we expect. It gives us a host of cute aliens, robots, and tech generally. It gives us some humour. This is unusual for a Star Wars film. It would be welcome if it were not generally so misplaced. It does not help the film to have the evil General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) portrayed as a slapstick bumbling buffoon.
The Last Jedi has two egregious faults. The first is narrative sloppiness. This is especially noticeable in the casino heist/Benicio del Toro sequence which is completely inconsequential and irrelevant. It should never have been part of the film. It goes nowhere, adds nothing and, with minimal rewriting, could have been cut. The film would still have run over two hours, but a good deal less than its bloated 153 minutes. The film is not well-paced.
The second flaw is a wilful re-writing of Luke Skywalker's character. Luke has always been a hero, even when he was a callow, inexperienced youth. To revise him into someone who turns his back on doing the Right Thing, notwithstanding the provocation, is a betrayal of the audience. We have invested much in this character, over many years, and this is not playing fair with us.
Oh, and while we're at it, John Boyega must be hugely disappointed: Finn was hardly in it.
In short, the narrative does not flow well, the story is underwhelming, we don't get the answers we wanted to questions, and characters are inconsistent with earlier versions. And, as a result, The Last Jedi is a disappointment.