'Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker' A Review

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a SFF epic and the conclusion of the Star Wars saga begun in 1977. After the events of Star Wars: The Last Jedi the Resistance is on the run and the Emperor has emerged from hiding after he was resurrected by a death cult. The first half of the movie is taken up with a search for a MacGuffin which leads to both an intimate and large confrontation with the Emperor and his forces on a hidden Sith planet.

Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver as Rey and Ren respectively maintain the wonderful tension and chemistry from the previous installments and their narrative comes to a satisfying conclusion. Thankfully John Boyega and Oscar Issac as Finn and Poe respectively are more central to the story and have more screentime than they did in TLJ and do well and clearly relish their arcs. Given this is a genre spectacle not a bedroom drama the acting is broad(but effective) rather than deep and other than the four essential leads not much is asked of the supporting cast.

Visually the movie is thrilling and breathtaking and rich. The lightsaber battles are impeccable and the dogfights fun. The worldbuilding continues to be immaculate but although entertaining and fun, and for most probably delivers considerably in the nostalgia department, the movie suffers from all the plotting and work it has to do to get to a conclusion because of the poor planning of the entire trilogy.

The original trilogy captured hearts and imaginations not only because it was transportive but because it had soul and allowed it's three core characters to breathe and transform. The prequels failed because George Lucas had become to rich and privileged to write a decent story and became too obsessed with moviemaking technology. This trilogy succeeds in narrative proficiency and visual mastery but fails in delivering the requisite soul.

Maybe that's too much to ask, it's virtually impossible to catch lightening in a bottle especially if attempting to do it deliberately. And it's not the fault of any of the cast or crew but with it's very conception. The Force Awakens went into production without scripts or even an outline of where the trilogy would go as a whole and the projects were dolled out piecemeal and with severe time constraints. As such this modern trilogy feels like what it is, a hodgepodge of wonderful moments and scenes with only the most broad boundary to connect all three. Is it worth watching? Definitely! But genre and particularly Star Wars allows stories that can both thrill and inspire, unfortunately only one of those benchmarks was met.

See It.