Title: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Director: Rian Johnson
Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscaar Isaac, Andy Serkis

When The Force Awakens arrived in 2015, fans and critics celebrated it as a return to form for a series wallowing in the unpleasant aftertaste of George Lucas' prequel trilogy. At the same time, moviegoers criticized it for playing things too safe, and for matching the plot points and dramatic beats of the very first Star Wars adventure, a New Hope. Its sequel The Last Jedi, conversely, is a movie of risks, gambles, and subverted expectations. It's arguably the most surprising and different Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back, and subsequently could finish as the most controversial. It's also among the most thematically rich and visually striking films of the long, probably never-ending franchise. It's not perfect, however. Some of its humor is broad and ineffective. Many digital effects are distracting and unconvincing. Most glaring of all, the movie is too busily plotted and, as a result, overlong. 

The Last Jedi picks up immediately after the concluding scenes of The Force Awakens. Rey, a young adept strong in The Force, seeks out Jedi master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), both as a guide -- "I need someone to show my my place in all this," pleads Rey -- and as a symbol of hope for a downtrodden and outmatched resistance army. Luke, having gone into hiding in "the most unfindable place in the galaxy" wants nothing to do with the resistance or with Rey, after losing a previous student to darkness. Meanwhile, the resistance fleets struggles to escape the long reach of The First Order, a fascist organization that grew from the ashes of the Galactic Empire, which Luke and friends defeated thirty years prior.

Fans anxious that The Last Jedi would play out like the original trilogy's sophomore effort, The Empire Strikes Back, need not worry. Writer-director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) treats his movie as a fresh canvas. Yes, he's inherited story threads and characters from The Force Awakens, but he takes those plot points and people in new, surprising, and uncomfortable directions. The First Order pursuing the resistance fleet through space could have easily mirrored Darth Vader's pursuit of the Millennium Falcon in Empire. Yet it plays out more like a nod to Battlestar Galactica, with what's left of the rebellion struggling to simply stay alive in a flotilla.

Likewise, Rey's training with Luke, which might have played out much like the relationship between young Luke and his own mentor Yoda, is flipped upside down. Luke shuts himself off from The Force, rejects Rey's requests, and questions the usefulness of the Jedi and the legitimacy of his own legend. Meanwhile, Rey finds a surrogate teacher in Kylo Ren (Adam Driver, in a raw, unhinged performance), Luke's nephew who turned to the dark side of The Force and now serves the leaders of The First Order.

When Johnson focuses on these two plot lines, and the themes of survival, hope, sacrifice, failure, and destiny that accompany them, the movie is at its best. Unfortunately, the film takes several detours that end up disrupting its pacing and padding its running time. At 152 minutes, The Last Jedi is the longest Star Wars movie, yet a few judicious edits could have brought that number down considerably, resulting in a leaner, more dramatically-efficient story. There's a great 100 minute movie in The Last Jedi, buried under a bunch of sub-plots and action sequences that probably should have ended up on the cutting room floor.

The worst offender is the casino planet, where Finn, an ex-soldier of The First Order, and resistance mechanic Rose Tico (played warmly by newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) attempt to recruit a code-breaker to save their fleet. This sequence, which takes place in the middle of the movie and threatens to stop it dead, adds very little to the experience overall, apart from setting up the film's admittedly perfect final shot. It also suggests the idea that the resistance and The First Order aren't so different, after all, but that motif is introduced by Luke elsewhere -- and more convincingly.

Speaking of Luke, in many ways this is his movie. Whether in isolation on Ahch-To, or in crabby interactions with Rey, he brings humor, weight, and pathos to the proceedings. Mark Hamill takes the character that made him famous and brings him to new places, both downtrodden and ascendant. It's without a doubt the best acting performance of his long, impressive career.

On a technical level, The Last Jedi mostly shines. Costumes, props, and sets, inspired by everything from samurai armor to WWII bombers, are often stunning. John William's musical score is appropriately rousing. The movie's photography, done by Steve Yedlin, who partnered with director Johnson three times before, is consistently engaging and, at times, downright breathtaking. The film's climactic sequence, filled with blood-red plumes of clay dust and ending with a showdown worthy of Sergio Leone, is one of the most visually-arresting of the entire Star Wars saga. Regrettably, some of the special effects employed throughout the movie are far less convincing than others. In some instances, The Last Jedi looks worse than The Force Awakens, which relied heavily on practical effects.

Equally spotty is the movie's attempt at humor. Where The Force Awakens traded in jokes informed by each character, The Last Jedi leans toward broad physical comedy to land its punchlines. BB-8, the comic relief droid, is featured too prominently here. So too are the Porgs, the latest franchising opportunity dreamed up by Disney. These painfully-cute Furby lookalikes are present in the film mainly for a few cheap laughs (and for stocking stuffers this holiday season).

In the end, The Last Jedi is a movie of moments, both amazing and middling. Unlike The Force Awakens, which was consistently good but never great, The Last Jedi achieves greatness at times. There are moments here of clarity, of revelation, of pain, and of visual poetry that are rare in the Star Wars universe. Yet there are, at the same time, moments where jokes fall flat, digital technology fails, and sub-plots go nowhere. A script doctor and a discerning editor could probably make this a masterpiece. Right now, however, The Last Jedi isn't the rival to The Empire Strikes Back it wants to be.

7/10

Saw the movie last night, slept on it, and reflected upon it this morning. I hope you enjoy the review, and please share your comments and opinions!

Very well written review even though I can't agree with the verdict. To me the movie was a complete mess as stated in other threads.

I really didn't care for it personally. In fact, besides being visually spectacular, I think it's a completely dysfunctional movie, both as a stand alone, and as part of a trilogy.

Yeah both 7 and 8 rank among the worst for me. For multiple reasons of course.

Good review. I won't see it until it hits Netflix and then it will probably still take half a year until I get to it. I just watched the force awakens a few months ago. At least I think I did, can't have been that good if I can't remember it already. Is that the one they have to break through some kind of planetary shield and the silly tugboat push one star destroyer through another?

I think your review is very objective and good. I just saw the movie today, and my primary feeling is that the movie does deliver well considering that the expextations are massive. I really liked the way they build the story of force, and how it is time to forget the ancient and build to the future. I would have spent some more time on the Snoke as a character, less time on casino. For me this was a 9. 

I had a blast with TFA, didn't like RO at all, after reading the spoilers for TLJ I'm excited, but have my expectations pretty high so I will probably be let down. Oh well, we shall see soon.

I don't care what anybody else says though, I'm going to just live in my own bubble and pretend that everything that happens outside of the original trilogy is fanfiction (yes, even the Lucas-helmed prequels).

I agree with almost everything you said about the movie, but there's one thing that we clearly differ about it. Which is the score (I'd rate it about a 9/10 probably) and the casino scene, which I felt it was terrific. You've already written one of the reasons I think it was pretty great, which is the notion that the Empire and the Rebels are not so black-and-white. But I think you probably missed the main reason that whole sub-plot exists, and why I think they did a terrific job with that. Which is the vision of the "third side" of the conflict and their lives. The lives of the people who are earning money out of war and people's suffering. Arms dealers' who are now living in luxury and gambling with all the money earned by war. Which was pretty well reflected in the Rose/Finn conversation at the casino. And the dystopian feeling of that planed, with child exploitation, animal brutality. The ugly hidden behind the beauty. I tend to enjoy a lot when movies take their time to show the other side of the conflict, so I really enjoy that sub-plot.

Yeah, I agree there was a nugget of potential in that sub-plot, but Johnson never really unpacked it. I mean, if he wanted to hammer home the idea of child labor and of the collateral damage of the war between First Order and resistance forces in general, then he should have really committed to it. That means cutting out the perfunctory chase sequence, and the prison breakout and other fluff.

The scene just isn't efficient, especially when Luke touches on the idea elsewhere in the movie. Heck, even Kylo Ren touches on it. This idea that -isms and dogma are more destructive than helpful is one of the film's main themes.