Genre:
Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Produced by:
J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, Michelle Rejwan
Directed by:
J.J. Abrams
Written by:
J.J.
Abrams, Chris Terrio
Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm
Starring: 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
Runtime: 142 minutes
SYNOPSIS:
With only a few survivors left, the
Resistance is given no choice but to call forth all of those resources if they
are to stand a chance against the First Order. Meanwhile, out of the ashes rise
the Jedi and the Sith as they resume their ancient battle for the galaxy’s supremacy.
Rey (Daisy Ridley) holds a key role
to both the Jedi and the Resistance’s plight as she faces Supreme Leader Kylo
Ren (Adam Driver) once more in a final
confrontation where their past and present collide.
REVIEW:
A franchise that began four decades ago with
A New Hope (1977), Star Wars’ reputation has grown more
divisive in the new millennium. It’s not all that surprising considering the high
standard George Lucas set with the original trilogy. A New
Hope was a great movie, Empire
Strikes Back (1980) was a cinematic masterpiece and Return of the Jedi (1983), while not as good as the previous two,
remained a satisfying finale. Lucas deserves
some credit for having the guts to make his obscure fantasy happen, hence
giving birth to one of the biggest movie franchises in the world.
But, in a swift stroke of the
underwhelming prequel trilogy (1999-2005) and a certain Gungan comic relief, he
suddenly went from being the franchise’s hero to its own arch-nemesis. He came
under fire for his work in the prequels, which forced him to sell his beloved
property to Disney. Despite the change
of hands, it is still same old same old. The
Force Awakens (2015) was initially deemed a strong comeback, a consensus which
has now soured a little bit due to its narrative similarities to A New Hope. And then the Last Jedi (2017) tried something different,
leaving fans disgruntled. Fingers were pointed at the people responsible for
the production, ranging from Rian
Johnson to Lucasfilm’s president Kathleen
Kennedy.
Following the fan outrage, Rise of Skywalker becomes a case of do
or die for the Disney-era Star Wars. It’s
the franchise’s ninth installment and final not only in the sequel trilogy, but
also the nine-chaptered Skywalker saga that began with A New Hope (or chronologically speaking, Phantom Menace (1999)). And its journey to the silver screen is just
as rocky as the fans’ relationship with the current creators. Colin Trevorrow was at one point attached
to direct the movie as well as co-wrote it alongside Derek Connolly before the two departed the project back in 2017. If
there is any consolation though, Trevorrow’s
replacement is none other than J.J.
Abrams, helmer of the Force Awakens,
the least-hated installment from the sequel trilogy in the fans’ perspective.
Typical of a J.J. Abrams franchise movie, Rise
of Skywalker is a fitfully entertaining, crowd-pleasing trilogy-capper that
is a capital-T total antithesis to Rian
Johnson’s subversively niche predecessor. It almost resembles a homely,
unrelentingly reverential big-budget Star
Wars fan film, executed with the same kind of traditional, tried-and-tested
storytelling approach and celebratory tone as the Force Awakens. It’s a two-and-a-half hour long gargantuan finale,
which sees Abrams let his sheer,
unadulterated childlike enthusiasm run riot with the constant,
self-congratulatory wink-wink and nudge-nudge to previous installments. As a
movie, Rise of Skywalker is pretty
much the popcorn-munching blockbuster equivalent to a bunch of kids playing around
with their Star Wars action figures, reenacting
some (or in this case, many) of the series’ iconic moments and giving their own
slight twists to them.
There are certain sections of the movie’s greatest hits-style reenactments and the twists to those scenes that Abrams and his co-writer
Chris Terrio, the latter of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
(2016) and Justice League (2017) fame, handle with a surprisingly good
balance of cathartic joy and heartfelt tenderness. In fact, Rise of Skywalker is at its most
precious whenever the narrative is able to add some dramatic heft to the fan
service moments. One of the movie’s highlights is actually the sequel trilogy’s
main characters’ brief, yet impactful encounter with the original trilogy’s
legacy characters and how this then corresponds with their arcs, particularly for
Rey and Kylo Ren.
Without going into spoiler territory
(and hopefully these descriptions won’t be all too revealing), there is a scene
where Rey meets a legacy character who’s been seen before in this sequel
trilogy and it starts out with some earnest pep talk before it leads towards this
legacy character pulling off an awesome move that’s the perfect callback to another
awesome moment during the Dagobah training sequence in Empire Strikes Back. There is the same kind of callback too with
Kylo Ren meeting another legacy character who had also appeared in the sequel
trilogy (though this character’s appearance here is more surprising than the
legacy character Rey met) and here, the writers find a clever, moving way to
subvert the fans’ expectations of how this familiar encounter panned out,
especially with the knowledge of what happened before in the Force Awakens. And the scene delicately captures Kylo’s
evolution as a character from the first movie in the sequel trilogy to this one.
Abrams and Terrio have, with Rise of Skywalker, also created a timeless, deliriously amusing screwball
comedy about mismatched friends learning the power and importance of friendship
and bonds masquerading as a space opera. Its treatment of the group dynamic between
Rey, Finn (John Boyega) and Poe
Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is playful and
light, bringing to mind the original trilogy’s holy triumvirate of Luke
Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Leia and
Han. It’s in their constant odd-couple-esque bantering and bickering, especially
between Poe and Rey, where the movie finds some human element to keep its flight
of fancy fairly grounded. Not to mention the quips and witty one-liners poking
fun at the age-old Star Wars tropes, for
instance in one scene where Poe, after seeing Rey perform a Jedi mind trick on
two stormtroopers, starts questioning whether she’s been doing the same thing
to him. It’s one of the many bright, natural comic moments present here, made
more startling by the fact that it’s only the first time the trio is together
in this sequel trilogy, since Poe is only formally introduced to Rey in the Last Jedi.
But the real emotional meat remains the symbiotic,
Force-driven relationship that’s developing between its Force-sensitive heroine
Rey and equally Force-sensitive villain Kylo Ren, one commonly referred to as Reylo.
One of the things Abrams and Terrio inherited from the Last Jedi, their Force connection moments
form certainly one of this movie’s, and to a certain extent this trilogy’s, most
compelling narrative arcs. It’s a nifty addition to the Star Wars canon that this sequel successfully builds upon in such
an engaging way it feels fresh but also true to the franchise’s integral theme:
the blurring of the line between good and evil. Rey and Kylo’s psychological tug-of-war
provides a strong moral counterpoint to the movie’s intergalactic conflict, much
like Luke’s love-hate relationship with his Byronic father Anakin Skywalker/Darth
Vader in the original trilogy. Furthermore, this movie makes ample use of such
Force power with striking visual flourishes, mostly involving the switching of locations
in accordance to the power’s teleportation potential that makes those sequences
interesting to look at. And this arc then culminates into a badass, cheer-worthy
shot with a lightsaber in the third act.
Some of the joyful little subplots with
the droids are just as worthwhile to get through as the main feature, namely
the cutesy meet-cute moments between BB-8 and D-0 (J.J. Abrams). Their entire segment plays out like a near-silent Pixar
short in the vein of another droid love story Wall-E (2008), depending on gestures to convey these droids’ human
behavior. Speaking of droids, it’s wonderful to see C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) given more to do in this trilogy in a plot-wise
pivotal way that harkens back to A New
Hope. He’s essentially the main characters’ plus one who is there throughout
their adventure, and having an extra dose of his sarcastic, sincere personality
draws as much laughter as it jerks tears.
As usual, Rise of Skywalker is a sensational technical achievement. Abrams’ emphasis on the superb practical
effect work for the creature design captures the weirdness of this world
convincingly, inspiring a new batch of memorable creatures such as the
slug-like Klaud and the adorable, Baby Yoda-like Babu Frik (Shirley Henderson). Cinematographer Dan Mindel fills the screen with gorgeous imagery of mountains and vistas
to give this movie its worthy epic feel, particularly in a lightsaber fight between
Rey and Kylo Ren atop some wreckage and surrounded by raging waves that’s shiver-inducing
just for the scale alone. John Williams signs
off from the franchise on a euphoric high, with his pulsating score matching
the grandeur displayed onscreen. His choir touch for the Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid)’s theme in particular is
heavenly.
Compared to the previous two movies
though, Rise of Skywalker is the
weakest in the trilogy, one that’s marred by some baffling creative decisions. And
the slapdash manner in which the creators assemble these creative decisions into
a full-length feature is a clear reflection of not only its problem, but also Disney’s
with its handling of the Star Wars property.
For one, the script is an incoherent
mess. It is as if they are making things up as they go along, because this
movie is riddled with so many subplots and arcs and they’re explained
(sometimes not explained at all) in such hurried fashion the plot becomes
rather difficult to follow. Rise of
Skywalker’s bloated opening thirty minutes unfolds like watching five to
six balls in a pinball machine pinging back and forth all at once. Frankly
speaking, there’s hardly any said plot in this movie, as it comes across as a
large filler episode than it is a Star
Wars finale, where the script’s idea of a cinematic resolution is by having
the characters run an absurd amount of treasure hunting errands involving some
MacGuffins similar to Avengers Endgame
(2019), except without the same level of narrative momentum or purpose to hold
it all together. If anything, these errands exist only to kill time, like the
new characters Rey and her friends frequent during those sequences.
Rise
of Skywalker is
less of a Star Wars story and more of
a knee-jerk reaction to the masses boarding the
Last Jedi hate train. They’re so busy trying to fix what the Last Jedi did wrong, only to end up
concocting something much worst.
And the script’s decision to bring Palpatine
back epitomizes the movie’s knee-jerk writing. First things first, it’s a huge
mistake. His status as a fan favorite should not detract from the fact that he
shouldn’t be in this movie. Palpatine’s inclusion at this point in the game
seems unplanned, very last minute and more like the creators desperately
pushing the panic button after Rian
Johnson killed off this trilogy’s own Emperor-like character Snoke. As far
as franchise continuity goes, the previous two movies have never properly set
up or even so much as hint at the possibility of Palpatine returning and so, his
sudden ascent as this movie’s and, to a certain extent, this entire trilogy’s big
bad feels unearned.
Having Palpatine involved in Kylo Ren’s
life also undermines the arc the latter went through in the Last Jedi, using him to
recreate the same mentor-apprentice relationship Kylo had with Snoke, to very
little to no effect. Considering his current position as Supreme Leader, Kylo’s
need for Palpatine’s guidance, despite having something to do with a personal
agenda, is confusing, one that’s akin to a freed slave who decides to be a
slave again. Palpatine doesn’t really do anything interesting here to warrant a
grand return, telling Kylo information he already knows and sending him to
compete with Rey on some treasure hunt mission for the majority of the movie. Kylo
and Palpatine’s first encounter leads to some infuriating insights into Snoke’s
origins, perhaps the last remnant of Trevorrow
and Connolly’s script due to its
similarity to a plot element used in Jurassic
World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), which renders all the Kylo-Snoke scenes in
the previous two movies pointless.
Rise
of Skywalker
is marked by regressive characterization. Rey devolves into an invulnerable,
all-too-perfect, overpowered superhero with only few shreds of humanity.
There’s rarely a moment when she feels like she’s in any real danger, hence
taking away the suspense. Its introduction of the Force-healing power seems
like a cheap excuse for cowardly storytelling. It’s not necessarily the
existence of such power, but its overuse for plot conveniences that’s
bothersome. And Rey’s sudden mastery of it is even odder, with the previous
movies never suggesting that she always has this power within her or learn it
from anybody.
That sums up Rise of Skywalker: a movie that teases revisionism here and there but
then retreats into comfort zone. It even fails to fully commit to its radical
revelation of Rey’s lineage, somewhat trying to have its cake and eat it too,
only to further anger already angry fans. Let’s not forget the wasted
opportunity with the General Hux (Domhnall
Gleeson) character, whose intriguing motivation throughout this trilogy has
been discarded in favor of giving him a dumb twist and a random character Allegiant
General Pryde (Richard E. Grant)
more screentime.
Although Rise of Skywalker struggles as a story, the impressive core
ensemble still manages to rise up to the challenge, just like what they’ve been
doing during this entire trilogy. Their commitment to the cause is what often provides
credibility to an otherwise unreliable material.
Daisy
Ridley
slips back effortlessly into the role of Rey, showing as much wide-eyed
exuberance and curiosity about her inner Jedi power as she was in the previous
movies and also all the intensity, conviction, discipline and grace required to
allow the character to be the toughest Jedi action heroine in the galaxy. Ridley is capable of riding the fine
line between raw emotion and skilled fighter, which gives every action sequence
she’s in more meaning. Her occasionally casual, deadpan demeanor upon using her
Jedi power, particularly in scenes involving her performing the Jedi mind
trick, helps inject some humor into the movie’s fantastical scenarios.
Adam
Driver
truly disappears into the dark, tortured soul of the trilogy’s tragic villain
and possibly its finest creation Kylo Ren. Driver
brilliantly embodies both conflicting sides of Kylo Ren as he shifts nimbly and
rather easily from being a larger-than-life intergalactic bad guy to just an
ordinary, everyman guy. His renowned subtle, understated acting method brings a
deeper, nuanced context to his villainy, reminiscent of his many critically-acclaimed
works in the arthouse circle. His physical performance is just as impressive as
his dramatic performance. His tall, commanding presence and aggressive fighting
style manage to give Ridley’s
lightsaber skills her run of the money.
The late and
great Carrie Fisher makes the most
of her reasonably limited screentime, a nice, soothing ray of sunshine as she
plays Princess Leia in her final appearance. Kudos to the filmmakers for
combining some unused footages from the
Force Awakens and one or two stand-ins to, in some way, craft a
heartwarming performance that beautifully honors Fisher’s legacy. Like Fisher,
Anthony Daniels is a regular fixture
in the Star Wars franchise, having portrayed
the golden humanoid robot C-3PO in all of the episodic movies thus far and he is
an effervescently hilarious scene-stealer, thanks to his trademark
mild-mannered line delivery and impeccable comic timing.
Meanwhile, a
name that has been long lost from this universe, Billy Dee Williams is as ideally suited to the role and snazzy cape
of smooth-talking smuggler Lando Calrissian as he was the first time in Empire Strikes Back. It doesn’t matter
whether he’s 82 or he’s in his 40’s, Williams
always makes his presence felt, oozing ladies man charisma, winning smile and a
newfound fatherly wisdom that takes his portrayal to interesting direction. If
there is any disappointment about his performance, he isn’t in the movie all that
much, but at least, he is enjoyable, helped by the fact that he gets to say one
of the franchise’s most legendary line. John
Boyega and Oscar Isaac form a
fun comedic pairing as Finn and Poe Dameron respectively, and their chemistry
here is so rock solid and their barbs flow so naturally their collective acts
feel like it’s ripped straight out of the buddy cop movie copybook.
CONCLUSION:
Star
Wars: Episode IX – Rise of Skywalker delivers fan service, cool lightsaber
action, spectacle and fun, charming cast camaraderie galore, but its
convoluted, almost slapped together screenplay ends the Skywalker saga on a
sometimes satisfying and sometimes frustrating note.
Score: 6.5/10
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