STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER © 2019 Lucasfilm.

Star Wars: Episode 9 - The Rise of Skywalker is a chaotic disappointment, from its incongruous start to its fumbled and laborious finish. When director J.J. Abrams is not indulging in fan service or damage control with continuously mindless McGuffins, he flounders this trilogy that caps the Skywalker Saga with each and every element.

The Rise of Skywalker is a seven and a half hour trilogy cramped and starved into one feature. Half reactionary towards Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode 8: The Last Jedi and half diluted and heavy-handed fan service to try and craft a fitting finale to those who still care. Abrams film starts as it means to go on: chaotic and flat. The infamous opening crawl is one that causes a headache and pain before the film even starts; information is just vomited out with no conviction or depth, the audience has to accept narrative decisions that have been set up in a line of exposition rather than a hard-earned arc throughout this trilogy.

Beginning in the midst of what feels like the film’s second act, The Rise of Skywalker opens in a muddled and embellished first act that soon roars into a disconnected edit that has no means to pace itself. There is no trauma, no intrigue, no gravitas for what is unfolding with a pace that burns the audience and film out before it can even to attempt to hit those predictable emotional cues. Abrams film is bitesize information at its finest, never resting or pacing itself for impact. Each sequence feels as if it is racing to get to the point quickly. What results is a film without immersion or interest and uses the performances of Dominic Monaghan, Billy Dee Williams and Richard E. Grant to explicitly dump exposition to the audience in incredibly lazy and pathetic scenes.

Adam Driver, John Beyaga and Oscar Issac all take the backseat this time around, with Driver only the real character with a stable arc that sadly leaves underwhelming results. However, this is Daisy Ridley’s film and rests solely on the actress’s shoulders, but the results are as ironically tragic as the arc of her fabled character. The film crumbles with the weight of Ridley’s lacklustre conviction. Ridley’s emotional range is weak and poorly implemented in dire dialogue delivery and a lacking spectrum of charisma or interest, ultimately rendering another lifeless performance in a film that lacks any character moments or entertainment that does not feel overly forced or compromised.

The cinematography by Dan Mindel should be commended with its scale and scope and the costumes by Michael Kaplan look outstanding as per in every outing of this saga, but much of the filmmaking on offer is drastically inferior to previous instalments in this franchise. John Williams’ score is nothing short of pathetic and flat with no highlights to be found throughout this much-anticipated trilogy. The edit by Maryann Brandon and Stefan Grube is ruthlessly inferior and condescending, evoking a sense of rush in constant, perplexing wipe fades in order to contextually apply the heat within the plot. When, in fact, it is speeding things along with quick enough pace for the viewer not to catch on with the utter stupidity and ridiculousness taking place.

Sadly, what languishes the most is this horribly crafted and, quite frankly, patronising narrative that fails to incite any substance. Bringing back Palpatine is nothing short of disastrous and perplexing to what has come before it. Character arcs and trajectories are on a turnaround and become dumbfounded; serious ret-cons to direction and facts that have been on display are just a few elements that create a lingering disconnect for the viewer. The Rise of the Skywalker is a film that is one hundred and forty minutes long that needs to be seven hours to fully flesh itself out. Directed by five different people — including fans and producers — we are left with obtuse lore that caters to the fans who can not stand to see it go any other road than the one already travelled.

Star Wars: Episode 9 - The Rise of Skywalker is released December 18th 2019

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

The Nightingale

Abominable