REVIEW: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Is Not the Epic Finale Fans Were Hoping For
The final story in the Star Wars franchise, for now, jets into theaters tomorrow, December 20. This finale won’t be as epic as longtime fans will want. After a great start to the most recent trilogy with Star Wars: Force Awakens, the trilogy lost steam with the second film and loses more with this new offering. JJ Abrams, who stepped down from directing the second film, returns with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and never quite captures the allure of the first film.
Rey (Daisy Ridley), Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) set out to locate a Sith Wayfinder to help guide them on their journey to finally defeating the First Order in The Rise of Skywalker. Along the way, the trio runs into some familiar faces including Supreme Leader Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Unfortunately, Ren is still set on turning Rey to the dark side, with Ren on their tail, the group must find a way to stop the First Order and save the galaxy before it is too late.
Abrams tackles the task of trying to clean up the choices made in The Last Jedi without detouring too far from the overall storyline. There are some things that, unfortunately, had to stay because of how they were revealed in The Last Jedi. Abrams does just enough clean up that you won’t spend the entire movie wondering what is going on. The action scenes are, again, some of the strengths in this new film and Abrams lays them out well. From the lightsaber battles to the air fights, every battle was done with a purpose to propel the story.
Ridley, Boyega and Isaac return as our leads, Rey, Finn, and Poe. Unlike the last two movies, the group remains mainly together in this movie, but the final result is a little disjointed. It almost feels like they were trying to rebuild the relationship between the three rather than continue on the chemistry they had in the first movie. Each character was facing her own personal battle in this movie; instead of having them face their problems together, they opted to fight them alone. Had this been the second film in the new trilogy it would have worked better in terms of developing the leads’ relationship, but alas it did not.
Driver returns as Kylo Ren and is the one character in this movie I could have done without. The Rey/Ren storyline and that relationship takes center stage in this movie and there are some odd choices regarding Ren’s story-arc that could have been completely left out.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker does answer some questions from the past two movies; however, if you’re looking for all the answers you won’t find them here. If you plan to see this movie this weekend, it is too long in parts and chances are you will leave underwhelmed. There are fun surprises featured throughout that are quite enjoyable. If you’re a die-hard Star Wars fan, go see the movie. For all those who like the movies, but aren’t super fans, wait until it is released on Disney+ or DVD.
Grade: B-