The Force Is ‘Meh’ With This One – ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Review

Star Wars is such a divisive franchise, from the die-hard fans to those who swear each new installment “killed the franchise” to the casual fans who jump in and out, Star Wars means many different things to many different people. And I feel this movie is going to be the epitome of that feeling. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has the added pressure of not just continuing a long-running series but ending the saga of the Skywalkers giving way to new stories in the future. Does Star Wars accomplish that mission? Or does it fall to the dark side?

After skipping the last movie, J.J. Abrams returns to direct the final chapter of this saga. This movie starts off with quite the bang. In the first 15 minutes, we get Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) on a rampage through space, Finn and Poe (John Boyega and Oscar Isacc respectively) escaping from the first order, and Rey (Daisy Ridley) training to become a true Jedi under the watchful eye of Leia (the late Carrie Fisher). Seriously, I felt like I got whiplash from everything that happened in this short amount of time. It’s fun and exciting, but also a bit overwhelming and muddled. From there, our three heroes set out to find a way to an uncharted part of the system to stop the plans of the returning Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).

The first half of this movie is one big fetch quest; our heroes fetching an artifact to lead them to Palpatine, Kylo fetching Rey to try and turn her to the dark side, its reasoning is not all that interesting but…