Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker
2019
**
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong'o, Keri Russell, Joonas Suotamo, Kelly Marie Tran, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams
After Rian Johnson incurred the wrath of the Star Wars fans with his refreshingly subversive The Last Jedi (2017), J.J. Abrams, who directed the entertaining but derivative The Force Awakens (2015), returns to wrap things up with a fast-paced but disappointing spectacle which ignores most of Johnson's intriguing ideas and makes the third trilogy feel like three unrelated releases set in the same universe. The Resistance receive intel from a spy in the First Order that Emperor Palpatine has returned and built a massive fleet of Star Destroyers on Exegol. Rey, who is now closely bound to Kylo Ren through the Force, joins Finn, Poe, Chewbacca, and the droids to uncover a wayfinder which could lead them to the location of the Sith Lord. Never mind, the plot is of secondary concern to Abrams and Chris Terrio, whose script just seems to make things up as it goes along. Very often the story or character motives don't make any sense from one scene to the next, and even less so in the context of the trilogy and the Skywalker Saga. Occasionally it feels like some important scene was left on the cutting room floor. The stakes are supposedly high, but there are no big emotional payoffs because the movie doesn't dare to go through with any of its dramatic turns. If a villain we were sure died decades ago can suddenly resurface, it is clear that character deaths are meaningless in the Star Wars universe, especially if the Force can now be used to resurrect the dead and the old casualties hang around in spirit form anyway.
