Form over function. Shallowness at its prime.

Rating: 1/10 (22 November 2019)

I have waited two years to make this review... Because I didn't want to just came up with an emotional rant about it. I actually saw the movie three times. I was so thrilled and excited that the first time I leave the theater confounded. My brain was carefully avoiding the fact that I haven't liked it at all. Then the second view gave insights. And then I read all other reviews and opinions and realized it was a massive phenomenon. But the real dissappointment came when I read the reactions of Rian, Kathleen and even Bob Iger: they didn't even realize (or weren't even aware) how they have failed the story, the characters and the fan base.
Regarding the movie: the visual effects are on point. They are magnificent. The cinematography is delighful and the music is also very good. So the overall atmosphere of the movie is really immersive. You just feel in the SW universe. Thats great.
The cast delivered as good as they can, given what they have been provided as a script. But good performances cannot compensate for a general script that is an uneven mash up of different approaches to Sci Fi genre: from the blatant comedy that is Hux and all his apprearances, to the cape and dagger that somehow is still present in Kylo and Rey. TLJ never fully compromises and the jokes are way out of tone, when the other darker aspects.
And then, the final problem, the big problem... is the script. Whoever wrote this not only doesn't know about the characters, their essence, but with basics of having a credible "suspension of desbelief" regarding SciFi. Of course you are talking about spaceships and beam pistols, and telekinetic powers... but for all of this to work you need to adhere to some elemental rules. It's ok to have a spaceship, but you just can´t go against gravity for the sake of that. It's ok to have telekinetic powers, but you just can´t float in the middle of space, after and explosion just because... It's ok to have powers, but not to master them instantaneously without training, commitment, etc. All of that brakes audiences "suspension of desbelief" and transforms your SciFi - Medieval movie into a farse.
And if you are willing to brake those rules, its obvious you are not gonna care for the character arcs, their personalities or evolution. So you degrade the all-time hero, who sacrificed himself to save his dad, into a would be teen-killer, a denier of his own beliefs and principles. You transform a brave woman general into a fairy god-mother, you demote a competent pilot to promote a strange purple haired character with no substance, back history or whatever.
There is so much mistakes in this movie that I'm really surprised how the media has tried to make all the flaws about the fan base, their reactions, their lack of understanding, their mysoginia, and whatever.
When you are so sure all the "problems" are in the "others", then you have no capacity to grow, learn from your mistakes, or correct them. That's how Disney, Lucasfilms and Johson decided to treat this film. And with that, they just told a very bad story which by no means represents the original movies and their spirit.