Thursday, December 19, 2019

Film Review - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the third and final film in this sequel trilogy that began with The Force Awakens in 2015 and continued on with The Last Jedi in 2017 and concerns Rey (Daisy Ridley) continuing her Jedi training while the Resistance deals with the return of former Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) who is vowing a new vengeance on the galaxy he once ruled.

The Rise of Skywalker was a movie I held out hope for despite my mixed feelings on the Last Jedi and my meh feeling on the Force Awakens because the trailers had kindled that hope that somehow, someway despite the involvement of Batman V Superman screenwriter Chris Terrio, JJ Abrams’s return would deliver a strong finale like Richard Marquand did with Return of the Jedi in 1983.

But alas Mr Abrams does not deliver a good finale in fact he delivers not only the worst movie in this sequel trilogy but the worst movie since the prequel trilogy for 2 very big reasons:

- The first is sadly that very same screenplay co written by Mr Terrio (he also wrote Argo to be fair but Ben Affleck’s confident and assured direction really saved that film from being a tonal disaster) and much like Batman V Superman, it has such a messy structure to it in terms of its story ideas and comes across as so dour and sullen in its dialogue that no one really seems to be able to shine above it or make this story and dialogue work at all.

And it throws so much at the viewer in such a hurried way that you don’t get the time to really take anything in as it just wants to rush you to the next action sequence so you don’t get bored sitting there in your seat though that only works for so long and also like M Night Shymalan and Glass back in January it never feels like a cohesive script, just a bullet point list of ideas that get thrown against a wall in the hope that something, anything will stick and work and again none of it really does and it made me sad sitting there watching it.

- And secondly the return of the Emperor which has been heavily featured in the trailers and posters for this movie and it really makes little sense right from the opening crawl as I just sat there multiple times going “What the Fuck” and I had suspected that the only real reason he came back was because Supreme Leader Snoke was killed off stupidly in the Last Jedi and watching Palpatine in this movie just made me search my feelings and know it to be true after all and again this just feels like a sad sad and bitter disappointment.

I have had this feeling for some time that Star Wars was doomed to go down the same path as its sister brands from the 70s and 80s like Alien, Predator, Rambo and the Terminator which each had groundbreaking early movies that then gave way to mediocre follow ups and wore out the series welcome and watching the Rise of Skywalker again I ended up searching my feelings and knowing it to be true and bitterness like anger, fear, aggression and hate lead to the Dark Side and I will never turn to the Dark Side but I cannot give this movie a good review or recommendation, 1 out of 5.

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