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Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Movie Review

“I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” - Kylo Ren
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Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is the ninth film in the Skywalker saga, and also serves as the final installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy.  The film is directed by J. J. Abrams, and stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Adam Driver.  It picks up after the events of The Last Jedi, and sees Rey fighting to destroy Emperor Palpatine, who was assumed dead.  
As many of you probably know, The Rise Of Skywalker has been getting lots of mixed reviews.  Consequently, I went into the film a little worried about what I would be seeing.  I ended up walking out pleasantly surprised.  This is by no means a bad film, in fact, I would say it’s a pretty good film.  It provides a fulfilling ending to the Skywalker saga, and it left me feeling refreshed, and happy to be a Star Wars fan.  
The visuals and special effects are brilliant, as has been the case with some of the other more recent films in the franchise.  The action scenes are truly breathtaking, and the new locations and characters are fun.  The development of the older characters is also very interesting.  We get to learn more about the backstory of Finn, and other former Stormtroopers like him.  We get to learn about a planet that Poe spent lots of time on, and a woman he fell in love with there.  We find out Rey’s secret origins, and we see an emotionally tortured Kylo Ren grappling with his internal demons.  All of this was wonderful.
There is a lot of humor peppered throughout the film, and a lot of the jokes land considerably better than some of the jokes from 2017’s The Last Jedi.  All of the comedic elements involving C-3PO were fantastic, and there are also a lot of really funny moments involving a new character named Babu Frik.  There were a couple of cringey jokes, but the ones that stuck the landing greatly outnumbered the ones that didn’t.   
The decisions that J. J. Abrams made for the film are very smart.  Abrams set up a whole new story when he made The Force Awakens in 2015, and Rian Johnson took the story in a completely different direction when he made The Last Jedi in 2017.  With Abrams’ vision changed, he had to come up with a way to bridge the two films together to create a satisfying conclusion to the sequel trilogy.  In my opinion, he pulled this off beautifully.  He wrapped up the trilogy in a way that was clever and rewarding.  If you are reading this review, I would assume that you have seen at least most of the other Star Wars movies.  If that’s the case, then you know that the other films have all been building up to something very big.  This film makes all the buildup worth it, and delivers with some great payoff.
There is one glaring issue that I have with The Rise Of Skywalker, and that is the pacing.  The entire film moves at a breakneck speed, and that makes it somewhat difficult to keep up with everything.  This is especially true for the first 45 minutes.  There is also a lot of catching up to do since the events of The Last Jedi,  meaning that if you aren’t paying attention, or if you miss even the opening title crawl, it’s possible that you will be incredibly confused as to what’s going on.         
Besides that though, this is a really fun film that I had a total blast watching.  I am so glad that I got to experience the film in a theater setting, and I am very excited to watch it again in the future.  While this is not the best Star Wars film ever put to the silver screen, it was still a great ending to a wonderful franchise.  If this truly is the last Star Wars film following the characters that we know and love so well, then they couldn’t have picked a better one to end with.
Rating: PG-13
Grade: A-

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