After the events of The Force Awakens, Rey is on a remote island with Luke Skywalker to try and get him to help the Resistance but after his failure with Ben Solo, he wants nothing to do with them. Meanwhile, Finn, Poe, Leia, and a new character named Rose try to survive the First Order’s forces.
I’m not going to be biased with this review as a lot of other people can be when it comes to Star Wars. However, I noticed that a lot of people are being very critical of this film for rather simplistic reasons. But on to the review. I will try my best to not include spoilers but just be wary of the fact that I will be going into some plot specifics which may count as spoilers. Just to be safe, if you haven’t seen it, stop reading now. If you have seen it or just don’t care, we go on!
The acting was really, really good for the most part. I feel as if Daisy Ridley is more comfortable in the role. She’s been in more films, has had more experience with other directors/other films and is a bit rounded at this point. I thought she was quite wooden in the first one and couldn’t really convey what needed to be conveyed. However, here she is much better. John Boyega and Oscar Isaac are also very good here. Finn as a character is bit more explored here and Boyega does a great job with the more dramatic scenes. Isaac was good but didn’t really stand out to me. Kinda seemed a bit one note as a character. Adam Driver has a bit more of a personality here and his actions are very unpredictable which makes for an intriguing performance. The late Carrie Fisher in her last role does a good job. She conveys a bit more emotion here and has some great scenes that shows her acting chops while Force Awakens did not. Mark Hamill fits back into his role as Luke Skywalker like a glove and does a good but different and interesting portrayal of the character. Kelly Marie Tran was a boring character that I honestly didn’t care about at all. Nothing she did made me give a shit about what she did. Domnhall Gleeson was good despite over acting…. a lot. Laura Dern was boring and unlikable. Benicio Del Toro had no role whatsoever but was fine I guess. Kinda funny that he came back to the franchise he walked away from way back when.
The effects and CGI were hit and miss, but mostly hit. I thought it looked great and the space battles, and sabers and interesting little touches with CGI were all really good. Sometimes, something looked a bit cartoon-y but nothing awful like Jay Leno Superman.
Cinematography was beautiful, it looked great, especially during the action scenes, which are smooth an interesting to watch. Not smooth in the way like Kingsman where it uses different angles and point of views to tell its action, but, smooth in the way where it’s almost like a dance but not so well choreographed like the prequel lightsaber fights which looked too good. Here it has that gritty fighting style, but the way it was shot looked really smooth and interesting to see. Pacing was solid for the first two acts, but dipped in the third. A lot of people are saying it dragged in the second act, but I don’t think it did. But the last act certainly dragged. When I thought the film was almost over, I looked at my watch and there was still half an hour left. I feel a few minutes could’ve been shaved off a bit here and there. While I wasn’t necessarily bored, I was like, okay, come on let’s go, move a bit faster.
Action sequences, as I stated, looked great, were tension filled and overall interesting. The space battles looked awesome and the hand to hand combat looked interesting as well and I was very much engaged. Awesome combat and action.
Story, thank god, was NOT a carbon copy of Empire. Rian Johnson had his vision and stuck to it like glue. He captured the dark aspects of Star Wars but still had that fun action feel. It had a great mix of slower character moments that were engaging and interesting to watch. Then, on the other side, it had the fun space battles and the engaging lightsaber duels. The only bits I can argue that felt like Empire was our group splitting up and then coming back at the climax. The characters develop more, with maybe the exception of Poe. They tried to make his character more interesting but it kinda failed because it didn’t feel like it amounted to anything. However, everyone else was great and interesting. It had the emotional core. I cared about these characters and wanted them to make it out okay. The story with Luke was interesting and you see him as this broken down old man when the last time we saw him was this bright young Jedi Knight who defeated the Empire. I wish there was some more character stuff with him though. The stuff with the Resistance was also pretty interesting. I just wanted them to make it out okay, but it was this darker and grittier war-like setting and I appreciated that. It feels like Johnson set out to make this movie the way he wanted and he did it. I really like the story and the characters within the story. I also like the theme of “there is no good and evil” that was used throughout. There was also some unpredictable moments that made me gasp which were great. Next to nothing in this film was predictable. I also liked how Johnson didn’t rely on callbacks and references most of the time, and the ones that were, were beneficial to the story and helped move it along.
The negatives. Porgs. Fuck em. I feel like there was an attempt to not make Rey this OP character, but JJ wrote Rian into a corner with this character. Despite the fact that throughout, Rey is accused of being a nobody, an outcast in this story, she could still do these great things. As well as the fact it’s not explained why she can, she just can. While the film points out that she’s OP for no reason with various lines and action sequences, she could still do these wondrous things. Thanks JJ. Also, I felt that most of the jokes fell flat. Some of them gave me a chuckle but none were funny and had me questioning after the fact “wait, was that supposed to be funny?”. The pacing I stated dragged in the third act. Some of the characters were kind of just unnecessary like Del Toro and Dern. Served no real point to the story and could be interchanged with anyone.
Overall, while it didn’t live up to that great trailer, this was still a great film. It felt different but still felt like a Star Wars film. It had this grittier war like style (similar to Rogue One, but done better) but still had these interesting fantastical elements that make SW great. A solid entry in the franchise.
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