Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
The Force is wrong with this one
The grand culmination of the nine-film, 42-years-in-thetelling Skywalker Saga, The Rise Of Skywalker is a disappointment of galactic proportions. Hobbled by undercooked storytelling choices, forgettable set-pieces, and a baffling refusal to pick up the threads of The Last Jedi, it’s the biggest letdown for Star Wars fans since Battlefront II’s lootbox-gate.
Inexplicably, Emperor Palpatine is back (the groundwork for which was laid not by previous films, but Fortnite’s Star Wars event) to quash the Resistance. Meanwhile, Rey and Kylo Ren’s literal love/hate relationship takes them on a fetch quest across the galaxy.
Packed with incident, The Rise Of Skywalker’s planet-hopping, MacGuffinchasing story doesn’t hold up to the smallest amount of scrutiny. Rey and Ren remain a compelling pairing, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver doing fine work, and C-3PO is a standout, but every other character is short-changed.
Content to take the easy route, it gives fans what they (think they) want, not what they need. Most egregiously, it ignores or contradicts key points established by The Last Jedi and, as fans have discovered in the novelisation, omits details that would make sense of some more perplexing plot points
A lightsaber battle at sea is spectacular, ILM does miraculous work salvaging unused footage of Carrie Fisher from
The Force Awakens for use here, and cameo creature Babu Frik rivals Baby Yoda for Star Wars scene-stealers.
But this is not the Star Wars film you’re looking for. Jordan Farley