REVIEW: STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER is a messy end to the Skywalker saga

After the decidedly mixed reaction to Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi back in 2017 (a feeling that has apparently seeped into some of the cast & crew as well), J.J. Abrams has returned to the helm for The Rise of Skywalker, a messy finale to the Skywalker saga that tries to steer clear of the themes of The Last Jedi, but only gets lost in the space weeds.

With Abrams back in the director chair following The Force Awakens back in 2014, The Rise of Skywalker continues the story of Rey (Daisy Ridley), as she pursues her Jedi training while Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) hunts her, hoping to bring her over to the dark side of the force. With Supreme Leader Snoke vanquished, Kylo discovers that former Galactic Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is still alive, and instructs Kylo to kill Rey and ascend to his role as leader of what is now dubbed The Final Order.

The Rise of Skywalker tries to address many of the issues that certain fans had with The Last Jedi, especially the notion of Rey’s lineage. Writer/director Rian Johnson did away with the idea that Rey could only be special if she was somehow tied to the Skywalker family line; as Kylo Ren tells her in the film, she came from “nothing,” which actually makes her early Jedi skills all the more remarkable. That of course did away with much of the mythology of the “chosen one” concept from the Star Wars films, in favour of a more democratic approach that insinuated that anyone with the drive and desire to make a difference in the Star Wars universe could be just as vital as a Skywalker. Without getting into spoilers, The Rise of Skywalker eschews all of that, definitely stating who Rey’s parents were, and why they hid the truth from her. It needlessly complicates a storyline that already had a number of threads to wrap up in this “final” instalment of the Skywalker story,  and tears away one of the most novel ideas in Johnson’s film. What’s worse, it reads like capitulating to angry fans: this may have been the plan all along, but feels like a hard course correct in the aftermath of the reaction to the last film.

Apart from Rey’s backstory and how it ties into the arc of the film, The Rise of Skywalker is wildly overstuffed with plot and new characters. There are returning rebel faces like Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega), and new characters like the helmet-clad Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) who shares a contentious history with Poe. Due to the magic of editing, we also get some moments with the late and great Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia that really tug at the heartstrings.

Like with Return of the Jedi, which was also the concluding film of a Star Wars trilogy, much of The Rise of Skywalker is a giant action sequence, most of which is pretty exciting. There’s a whole planet (!) full of Star Destroyers facing off against our small band of rebel heroes, and Abrams stages these prolonged battles like a true action blockbuster, an aspect of the film that truly works well. Unfortunately, almost everything else here falls flat; there are a handful of chuckles throughout, but nothing like the normal witty banter you’d expect from a Star Wars film, and apart from Rey and Kylo, the rest of the cast might as well be background actors for all they’re asked to do here.

The tone of the film varies wildly; anytime we focus on Palpatine, it feels like a B-Movie there’s just no way to take his decaying face and over-the-top vocal work seriously. The first half of the film is almost laughably bad; at one point I was convinced this was as ridiculous as anything in The Phantom Menace, but the film thankfully manages to reign in the excessive new creatures, numerous locales and stilted acting by the second half, so much so that it almost feels like we’ve cut to another film entirely.

Abrams had a nearly impossible task with this film; he not only had to wrap up this current trilogy of films (complete with a controversial middle outing he had nothing to do with), but also tie up the Skywalker Saga in general, which dates back over 40 years at this point. Instead of striking out in a bold new direction like The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker plays it entirely too safe; once again we have a film that rests on defeating Palpatine, a character we know almost nothing about apart from the fact that he wears a cloak and shoots electricity from his hands. The first two films in this current trilogy at least had the ongoing battle between Rey and Kylo Ren at their heart, two characters fans were invested in and cared about. By essentially looking to mime the structure of Return of the Jedi (much like Star Wars was for The Force Awakens), The Rise of Skywalker ends up feeling like a retread instead of forging a new path for any future films (which are obviously coming). It brings back some familiar faces, and when those classic John Williams pieces hit, it’s hard not to feel that nostalgic pull that made us fall in love with this franchise in the first place. Abrams offers us a chance to say goodbye to characters many of us have grown up with, while trying to craft a satisfying conclusion to the arcs of new favourites like Rey and Kylo Ren. While The Last Jedi wanted us to kill the past, but The Rise of Skywalker wants to smother us with it like a warm and fuzzy Ewok embrace. The future can figure itself out.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in theatres December 19th.