Episode IX was very much a mixed bag. Some parts of it were quite good. Some parts of it were quite not. And for the moment, at least, I have no grand unified theory on what separates one from the other. It's not like it "starts strong, but ends weak," or vice versa. It feels a bit too long, but it's hard to point to any one particular section that drags. It is a real smoothie of good and bad, blended thoroughly.
Nostalgia reigns throughout the film. Some of the ways in which the film echoes and evokes past Star Wars is really quite cool. It introduces enough original ideas that it's not as easy to one-for-one fit the movie to a predecessor as The Force Awakens could be mapped to the original. But some of the callbacks and reappropriated plot elements are eye-rollingly terrible. There are ways in which you can map this movie to pre-existing Star Wars that really aren't great.
Some of the big action sequences are wonderful. They're majestic in scope, present unique visuals, and are really a joy to watch. Other sequences feel flat and obligatory -- the part of the movie where they're required to do this thing, but apparently not at all excited about it.
The relationship to The Last Jedi is mixed. It embraces some of the new elements that were introduced in that film. It totally jettisons others. Does it keep the good stuff and ditch the bad stuff? Nope. Nor does it do the opposite. It doesn't even discard cleanly; at least one narrative element from The Last Jedi sort of gets ground up and thrown away only to be picked up again and represented in its own new way.
There are several moments that are clearly meant to pack a hefty emotional punch. Some of them work. Some don't. Not all the moments that are meant to be exhilarating are. But some are. Not all the moments meant to tug at your heartstrings work. But some do. I'd say much of this movie kind of rushes past you in the way of a big dumb action movie... but it's not completely empty calories, either.
I can't even come down strong on the question of whether it's a good "ending" or not. As an ending to this modern day trilogy that began with The Force Awakens? I think I'd say no, it really isn't. It introduces too many new elements, not doing the best job of engaging with what the prior two episodes set up. But as an ending of a nine episode arc including the classic trilogy and the prequel trilogy? Yeah, it's a pretty good ending. It touches on all the things you'd want it to, and does a pretty good job tying it all up in a bow.
...though, I have to ask: why do that? This is, of course, not the last Star Wars film. And it feels pretty arbitrary to me to identify the nine numbered episodes as a thing that needs to be concluded. It's not like other two movies really stand that much apart from the nine. It's not like we're never going to see any of the characters from the nine episodes again -- stay tuned to Disney+, folks! So why manufacture the need for An Ending here? (Though I guess if you're going to... this one was pretty good?)
When I first reviewed The Last Jedi, I gave it a B. I watched it again a week ago, and I think it slipped just a little down to a B-. (The slow parts felt really slow to me this time, is the shortest way to put it.) I mention this because The Rise of Skywalker feels like a B- movie to me. But I'm really not sure whether I liked it more or less than The Last Jedi. Both to me are flawed movies -- but neither critically flawed in a way that makes me not want to watch them. It'll probably take me some time to figure out how I'd rank them. I suspect that means that the people who had a more polarized reaction to The Last Jedi than I did are going to have a very polarized reaction to The Rise of Skywalker too (in the opposite direction).
But, of course, you're all going to go watch and decide for yourselves.
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