Film Review - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (12A)

This will be the final word in the story of Skywalker.

And so we come to it - the final episodic Star Wars movie EVER... or at least until things have settled down. That may take a long, long time. 2015's The Force Awakens was largely embraced by the franchise fandom, but two years later The Last Jedi sliced opinion into two irreconsilible halves more effectively than Kylo Ren could have managed with his coolly impractical light-sabre. This time it fell to J J Abrams, writer-director of the trilogy-starter, to pacify the disgruntled, unite conflicting viewpoints, keep the studio executives happy and (most importantly of all) deliver a great film. Talk about being screwed before you begin...

Look, let's not get off on the wrong foot here. There's much to enjoy in The Rise of Skywalker and overall I had a good experience - possibly because I'm not a mega-invested long-time Star Wars fan. But is it the film to pull the trilogy together into a cohesive whole? I only wish I could answer yes...

Plotwise the movie begins with a massive, perplexing leap from what's gone before. A new-old threat has made itself known in the galaxy far-far-away - even while the First Order continues to assert its power - and the surviving members of the Resistance are on a mission to find a thing that will help them locate said threat. Meanwhile the eternally conflicted Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is seeking Rey (Daisy Ridley) either to kill her or turn her to the Dark Side. Planet-demonlishing death-rays are nearing completion, while an effort to swell the good guys' ranks seems to be going unheeded. Basically the nasty is about to hit the galactic fan, while our heroes flouder to respond. The much talked-about 'hope' seems in short supply and they're running on pure resolve.

Okay, let me deal with the problems first, all of them boiling down to narrative issues, most of which were built in by Day One of the Skywalker shoot. This entire trilogy turns out to have been planned with little regard as to where it was ultimately going. The Force Awakens was a joyous re-assertion of the franchise mythology, The Last Jedi (in my opinion) a wickedly entertaining subversion of that same mythos, leading the story off in an intriguing new direction. However a host of fans were incensed by the latter, bitching to the extent that the studio - I'm assuming - insisted on reversal tactics for the final film. Let's put the story back on a conventional track, they decided - re-introduce a classic Star Wars villain, reinstate the conventional lore and recoup the followers we lost last time around. Oh and let's throw in some nostalgic cameos (here's looking at you, Lando) that add nothing beyond naked fan service. That'll set things right. Yeah... or perhaps it'll serve to hash things up completely.

There are two lessons here that movie-makers at this level really should have learnt long since. The first is - have a plan. You know, one whereby individual writer-directors communicate sufficiently for their individual trilogy segments to mesh and where all the key players know, roughly speaking, what end-point they're working towards. Two - once you've struck a course, show the conviction to follow it through. Don't - please don't - pander to fans at the risk of narrative integrity. Decide on your story and then tell it, should the galaxy implode.

The producers of the new Star Wars trilogy abandoned both these rules with the result that The Rise of Skywalker spends way too much time re-setting the story and rushing its characters around the galactic chessboard, while it should be pausing to build on what's already been established. Central players from the previous film are sidelined (presumably due to poor fan response - grrrrrrrrr), while new ones are introduced but not properly developed. Meanwhile developments in certain character relations are hinted at like in previous films, but remain frustratingly unexplored by the end. Story-wise this is - in a way that its predecessors avoided - one cluttered and messy film.

All that said, there is much I love unreservedly about The Rise of Skywalker, to the extent that I'll still want to possess my own copy. The production design, so impressive in the previous two episodes, attains breathtaking heights of beauty here, enhanced by cinematography that's stayed uniformly sharp throughout the whole saga. It all looks so magnificent, the locations so solid and convincing (despite lavish use of CGI), that it's nothing short of a privilege to hang out there, more so with John Williams' evocative themes swelling around you. The cast play out their with similar conviction, whatever the deficiencies of the plotting. Finn and Poe (Oscar Isaac) have forged an enjoyable bromance and Chewie is never less than lovable, while the Rey/Kylo relationship is simply the best reason to watch the movie. The chemistry between these two frenemies sizzles like the dazzling red and blue of their light-sabres and the camera is besotted with them both. No joke - the scenes between this couple are the sexiest thing in cinema this year. 

Add to that the droid action (I can never get enough of BB-8 barrelling around spacecraft and planet surfaces), the masterfully choreographed action and the touching way in which the late Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia is incorporated into the drama and there is a huge amount here that I will gladly dive back into for a second watch.

You know I'm even content with how the movie resolved its central character journeys, while the final shot is a moment of understated perfection. However all of that can't counter the main flaw - a lack of a unifying narrative vision across the three episodes, something which becomes painfully apparent in this final one. That'd be a shameful shortcoming under any film-making circumstances. But with hundreds of top-quality creatives feeling the Force and producing work nothing short of sublime, it's nigh on unforgivable. Frankly the Jedi and the Sith both deserved better.

Gut Reaction: Perplexed and even mildly bored, until the central character dynamic drew me in and the bravura visuals production values swept me away. The whole thing's so flipping gorgeous, I couldn't help but submit.

Memorable Moment: Rey and Kylo's blazing, water-logged showdown. Just damn.

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. Despite how damaged the underlying story structure is, this scores high for how formidably well-made it is in physical terms. Skywalker scales amazing heights of practical film-craft, even while its narrative crumbles.