Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Review

Director: J.J Abrams

Writers: J.J. Abrams, Chris Terrio

Stars: Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley

For the third time since its beginning, Star Wars once again seeks to wrap not only the recent trilogy, but the entire ‘Skywalker Saga’ as a whole, doing so with about as much elegance as you would expect from a studio who had no clear vision for the franchise besides profit. The Rise of Skywalker is an utter disaster from beginning to end.

With the 9th and supposed ‘final’ episode, a new villain has returned to take over the galaxy, thus setting our cast of heroes on an adventure to search for a map to reach the enemy and once again, save the galaxy. The plot may sound barebones when described so brashly, yet The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t look to do anything exciting with the series, due to being in constant damage control mode after the disastrous fan reception of The Last Jedi.

It becomes a difficult task to see where the vision for this film begins, and where the retconning stops. Entire plot points from the previous entry are cleared away in fells swoops of unimaginative and lazy writing, in a desperate plea to appease the lost Star Wars fans while completely abandoning any semblance of a concluding narrative that doesn’t do anything more than set up some more action set pieces.

Sure, the action all looks fantastic, it almost is taken for granted at this point the technical merit of these films, from the costuming to the visual effects it all comes across as effortless for the crew. John Williams returns once again to score the film, of course the themes remain strong, with the rest of the score feeling fairly bland and forgettable. Yet it is all in favour of a story with meaning less action, set across a backdrop of a creatively bankrupt universe (at least in the feature film department). Not a single action in the film has even a semblance consequence, characters make flippant decisions with no ramifications to the greater narrative, from scene to scene it is as if what came before meant nothing.

Perhaps what is most disappointing about the conclusion is the wasted potential of this trilogy, Adam Driver is once again the stand out as Kylo Ren. Despite being given almost nothing to do work with, the performance is strong and again has ensured his character will perhaps be the most memorable aspect of the trilogy. That isn’t to say the rest of the cast do a bad job, far from it, they all continue to deliver good performances in spite of the limited scope of their characters. John Boyega as Finn is again wasted, being demoted further into the sidekick of Rey (Daisy Ridley), along with Poe (Oscar Issac) who’s charismatic performance serves his purpose well enough.

It gives me no pleasure to say that The Rise of Skywalker isn’t a great film, if you enjoyed the previous two entries in this trilogy you may just find yourself satisfied with this final entry. For me, it was a disappointing end to a trilogy that once filled me with such enthusiasm for the future of this franchise.

Rating – 2 Stars