Mr. Movie: “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is an uninspiring end to the first 9 episodes
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” picks up where “The Last Jedi” left off. It continued the story of “The Force Awakens.” The movie is a conclusion of the third trilogy of the series. Lucas’ episodes one through nine — those that he laid out for producers all those years ago — are finally done.
Other than the middle three that began in 1977, the rest haven’t been all that impressive. In fact, all that has been added from the original movies, is better effects. Episodes one through three and VII, VIII and now IX haven’t been all that good.
The movie is dreadfully serious and is totally lacking in humor. All it really manages to do is finish the story. Daisy Ridley’s Rey and her rebels do battle with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren who is The First Order’s version of Darth Vader.
By the way, is Adam Driver in every movie in 2019? Actually, it’s only four but when you consider all the work he did last year, it seems like more.
Oh, and if you haven’t been keeping up — or if you don’t remember — the First Order is this series’ version of The Empire.
The movie runs 2:21 and the plot is complicated. However, it’s Star Wars so how much do you really need to know? Not much. This one is packed with Star Wars lore and is as predictable as the rest of them.
The acting — so much fun in the original series — is as wooden as the regurgitated archive footage of Carrie Fisher. She died in 2016 but is in the movie quite a bit. In fact, Fisher gets top billing.
Not that it matters.
In my book Star Wars quit being relevant when George Lucas decided it was important to put episodes one through three on the big screen. The three movies — while providing much needed history — were awful.
Reboot king J.J. Abrams (“Star Trek”) had us all excited when he brought back some of the original cast for “The Force Awakens” in 2015. It picked up the Star Wars saga several years after Episode VI and was fun for about half a movie.Then Abrams made the huge mistake of killing off Han Solo.
It effectively took all the oomph out of the series.
Worse. Two years ago he was among those responsible for “The Last Jedi.” It led me — and many others — to wish it was the last Jedi. Nope. Now we have “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
The title confused me. Didn’t Skywalker pass from this life to become one with The Force? What? Does he rise from the dead? In itself that would be a real coup because it would resurrect a franchise that ought to have moved on long ago.
The series never managed to recover the cowboys in space adventure of the original three films. They were a blast.
Actually, in a way the franchise has moved into newer, more interesting pastures. The Disney TV show “The Mandalorian” has a storyline that’s getting rave reviews and its effects are as good — or better — than what Abrams put in his reboot and in this movie.
That leads to the answer to a question that has been asked of me for the last several weeks. A lot of people wanted to know if I was excited to see “The Rise of Skywalker.” A quick read of this review pretty much tells you what I think.
But just in case, the answer is no.
Other than the expected stunning effects, and the electricity generated by Ridley and Driver, not much in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is all that interesting.
▪ Rated PG-13 for mature themes. It’s playing at the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco and Queensgate 12s and at the Southgate 10, at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12 and at Walla Walla Grand Cinemas.
▪ Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5
This story was originally published December 20, 2019 at 12:21 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is an uninspiring end to the first 9 episodes."