Good effort, but a failure.

Rating: 5/10 (27 December 2017)

Firstly. I think the 1-3 star reviews are a bit dramatic. It's not a TERRIBLE film by any means. But it is very disappointing, and at times rather amateur.
Most of what made TFA good is absent in this film. The relationship between Rey and Finn is replaced by that of Rose and Finn - and this felt totally forced and flat. Is it really necessary to have Rose at all? We were given a whole new set of likeable characters in TFA to root for, and I was looking forward to seeing them together again...so I felt a bit frustrated having to watch Finn with Rose instead.
I suppose humour is always down to personal taste, but for me, none of the jokes were funny. They're not even delivered by the comedic characters.
The infamous flying Leia scene was ludicrous for me. I've heard Star Wars fans have always wanted a glimpse of her using the Force, but surely they had something else in mind? It looked daft.
At times it seemed as if Rian Johnson believed that as long as a scene had a Star Wars character saying Star Wars lines, it must automatically be good. I'm not a mega fan of Star Wars (but I like it enough) and would have to say that some of the dialogue (deliveries included) was really, really bad.
Doe Cameron is boring. And he's in it A LOT.
General Snoke was very watchable, and I was eagerly awaiting his character development - but he died in an insultingly obvious scene, and now we're stuck with Kylo Ren. Over these last two films, there have been glimpses of how he could possibly end up being a frightening or intimidating bad guy...but I've now made up my mind and decided he's just a bit annoying.
I actually found the Luke storyline quite interesting - but only the second half. The early exchanges were just tiresome and I found my mind wandering whenever there was an island scene.
I found The Force Awakens immensely watchable, the characters likeable and relatable, and the universe intriguing. None of these things apply to The Last Jedi. Yes, the events of the film were OK. But the way these events were presented to us was amateur and lazy. You cannot just have a character say "we are the spark that will ignite the fire blah blah" and consider your job done. You have to make us FEEL that. But all I felt for the majority of the film was bored and frustrated.