JJ Abrams returns with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In true finale fashion, this film sees Finn and Rey (John Boyega and Daisy Ridley) and what little remains of the resistance prepare to fight The First Order and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) one last time.

We also have relative newcomers Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson and Richard E Grant, and the familiar fan favourites Antony Daniels as C-3PO, Joonas Suotamo taking over as Chewbacca, Jimmy Vee as R2-D2, Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher. There’s also the much-anticipated return of Ian MacDiarmid as the Emperor Palatine.

Most of the cast appear to settle for what worked before. They’re likeable enough and you feel you can root for them. But Ridley and Driver do work very well together and demonstrate their capabilities as dramatic actors with great credibility and potential. MacDiarmid falls back into the role effortlessly after a 14-year gap.

The script has everything you’d expect from the climactic Star Wars film. There’s plenty of action with lightsabre fights, lasers and spaceships, all tailored to feel very exciting and crowd-pleasing. There are however some odd directions that the characters take, a bit sudden and not properly built up. Some more explanations might have helped our understanding.

Dan Mendel’s cinematography includes some inventive angles during the scenes involving flying spaceships, and Industrial Light and Magic provide some decent effects work.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the most memorable parts of John Williams’s score come when he revisits some of his most iconic pieces of Star Wars music. It would be easy for me to look down on this and put it down to a lack of inspiration, but in this case I don’t think I really expected anything more than I got.

Moving on to the flaws of the film, there are two that this film can’t seem to shake- it’s very repetitive and it drags. Even with a two hours and twenty-two minutes runtime and constant action onscreen, the film has quite a number of scenes that go for far too long, and some scenes feel like exact re-treads of scenes from earlier in the film and the two films that preceded it. The dialogue between the characters does change slightly, but what the scene is trying to convey stays the same. We have so many repeats of particular scenes that by the time all is revealed, it’s hard to care.

The Rise of Skywalker brings the saga to a satisfying end, but with mixed results. There are good performances from Ridley and Driver, lots of action, but questionable directions taken with the characters lack of explanations. Some scenes do drag on too long and are unnecessarily repetitive. This may not be the grand finale to a beloved saga that the world was hoping for, but it’s very clear to see that with a little luck, Star Wars can still be saved and have a future.

Director: J.J. Abrams
Writers: Chris Terrio (screenplay by), J.J. Abrams (screenplay by)
Stars: Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver
Andrew Moodie
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