For those who have not yet seen the film, I'll start with a short, spoiler-free take. (But seriously, you are living dangerously going online right now!) For me, The Last Jedi comes in well ahead of any of the prequels, but well behind both The Force Awakens and anything in the original trilogy. Rogue One remains the best thing about the Star Wars renaissance so far. Episode VIII is entertaining, and even has some great sections. Still, it's no threat to make my Top 10 List for the year.
Alright, time to leave now if you still haven't seen it. From here on, there be spoilers.
First, the good. This is arguably the best "actors' showcase" of all the Star Wars movies. There's weighty drama here in general, and especially poignant material for several characters in particular. Luke Skywalker is given the most interesting and emotionally complex story line he's ever had, and Mark Hamill gives his best performance in the role by a wide margin. I found it more than enough "apology" for his omission from Episode VII.
The duality between Rey and Kylo Ren really worked for me too. Yes, the dichotomy of "I can turn him / I can't be turned" was mined thoroughly between Luke and Vader in the original trilogy, but I think the mental connection between Rey and Kylo Ren really does add something that makes it play out differently. It allowed the characters to have a dialogue throughout the movie, setting up a long term push-and-pull between the two. Despite the mystical trappings, this feels more realistic to me than undoing 30 years of evil in a single meeting of a few hours, as Luke did with Vader in Return of the Jedi. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver gave strong performances too. It's not an easy thing to build a rapport between two people who aren't even physically in the same room together, but I thought they made it work.
I also really liked moments where the film took big narrative risks. There were some aspects of The Last Jedi that felt a bit formulaic, but ultimately even more things that shattered the formula. A conventional road map would never have killed off Snoke or even Captain Phasma in the middle chapter of the trilogy. The formula would never have admitted that the question of Rey's parentage was simply a red herring. Episode IX is now positioned to be something truly different -- Kylo Ren truly is the Big Bad, not a mere lackey of the Big Bad like Vader. Yet he's also impulsive and childish, wild and dangerous, not Machiavellian and controlled like the Emperor.
All that acknowledged and praised, it must also be noted that The Last Jedi isn't just the longest Star Wars movie in fact. It really feels like it, with elements that seem forced and some sections that really drag. The pacing of the film is really at odds with itself. On the one hand, the story lines that carry the most emotional heft are quite deliberately paced -- Rey and Luke's dialogue on Ahch-To is contemplative and methodical, as is the unfolding drama between Rey and Kylo Ren. On the other hand, that's all playing out against what is supposed to be a ticking clock of the final ships of the Resistance being stalked and destroyed. We're supposed to feel that time is of the essence and slipping away, but that urgency evaporates completely when the film takes its sweet time (however rightly so) on everything else going on.
The new characters introduced in this installment really do not work. Vice Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dern, feels opaque and obstinate only for the sake of plot. Her conflict with Poe Dameron seems manufactured, her "redemption" only a turn for the character because she's such an inaccessible cipher up to that point. The hacker DJ is simply annoying, not so much for being a backstabbing traitor as for the inexplicable affectations and tics he's given by Benecio del Toro.
Rose, played by Kelly Marie Tran, is an intriguing enough character, but feels placed in the wrong subplot. It feels off to me to place the survival of the Resistance (both in the literal sense of the plan to board Snoke's ship, and the metaphorical sense of inspiring future Resistance members) on Rose, whom we've just met, and Finn, who's only a newly minted member of the Resistance himself. And the romantic spark between them comes totally out of left field. When she kissed Finn, the person sitting next to me at the theater audibly whispered "stupid" -- and I had to agree.
There's also a streak of snarky irreverence throughout the movie that rubbed me wrong. Star Wars is by no means humorless, but it does take itself seriously overall. It is a "space opera," and the way people act and talk in its universe is by now thoroughly established. Writer/director Rian Johnson puts almost Joss Whedon-esque flourishes into his dialogue on a regular basis that to me feel out of place. Nothing breaks the fourth wall outright, but there are lots of things that brush uncomfortably against it. Especially bad examples included Poe Dameron's "phone call" to General Hux and Rey's awkward reaction to a shirtless Kylo Ren, but moments nearly as odd were sprinkled throughout the film. Though sometimes good for a laugh, these moments pulled me out of "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" and made me feel very much "on Earth, in 2017."
Overall, I'd say The Last Jedi was good. Certainly, it's exploding with potential for an outstanding Episode IX; it's easy to see how J.J. Abrams was encouraged to take back the baton, given what he's left to start with. I praise where The Last Jedi took risks, rather than re-mixing things as much as The Force Awakens did. Yet all the same, The Force Awakens was a more consistent movie throughout, and more engaging. I give The Last Jedi a B.
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