Star wars - movie review blog - maldeegan.com/blog
“The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga.”
The good news is Star Wars: the rise of Skywalker is marginally better than the last jedi (which isn't saying much). The bad news is the movie is soulless and made by a corporation more interested in turning Star Wars into Marvel than creating a great movie franchise. It attempts to pander to fans in a really uncomfortable fashion where more actually means less.
For my viewing there was a mini documentary screened before the movie that played heavily on nostalgia with archive footage from the first three movies including outtakes and interviews from set. Turns out this documentary was more entertaining than the actual movie itself. Making you realise what the first movie had above everything else: passion. Idealistic young movie makers trying to make something interesting and special. It is heavily counterpointed with the hallow money making venture witnessed after it. An exercise in story by committee, haphazardly trying to re-engineer a cohesive story from the poorly crafted ‘the last Jedi'. It's little wonder they jettisoned most of Rian Johnson's world, trying to right the ship and placate fans at the same time.
When we join the story - as slim a story as there is here - lord palpatine has apparently risen from the dead hidden away on ‘Excelon', a type of sith colony creating legions of other sith's as well as thousands of star destroyers under the unimaginative title of ‘the last order'. Kylo Ren is instructed by palpatine to kill Rey to assume control of the new army. Meanwhile Rey is being trained by Leia in the ways of the force - a strange turn of events since we had no clue Leia was a Jedi before this despite her Mary Poppins flight through space in the last Jedi - she is ‘force' visited by Kylo Ren who controls her training Robot firing blaster rounds at her. This leads Rey to abandon her training to destroy Kylo Ren. Her amiable sidekicks join her and along the way they embark on a dark adventure that will see them come face to face with an ancient foe.
Visually the rise of Skywalker is impressive. It looks, for the most part every bit of 150 million. It's biggest flaw besides some really badly scripted dialogue is the fact we don't care about any of the characters in this universe. It doesn't help that every exchange between characters on screen is either exposition or decidedly unfunny quips. Even the actors I feel are phoning it in, weary by the same exchanges scene after scene.
It gives the impression that the movie was 'made up as they went along' with scenes haphazardly thrown together and a plot that contradicts itself.
Rey is now super human capable of controlling space craft, leaping hundreds of feet in the air and anything else the messy plot requires of her to fill gaps with. When there is no grounding for a character literally anything goes. The same can be said for Palpatine who has powers enviable of a god despite his cataracts and ailing health. It is world building by committee and lazily copying a trend that Marvel movies have adopted having to one up themselves to the detriment of tension and excitement. To the point we don't care when one more Lazer battle explodes onto screen.
It's contrived to showcase effects, jettisoning human interaction and passion leaving a hollow empty soul of a movie that only sometimes entertains. When all has been said and done Star Wars: the rise of Skywalker is a messy exercise in excess and it is a lesser movie for it.
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