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This film picks up directly where The Force Awakens dropped off: Rey (Daisy Ridley) has just found Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and asks him to train her as a Jedi. At first he refuses because he feels responsible for baddie Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) having turned to the dark side ... and as a result he would rather let Kylo Ren destroy the Rebellion rather than help someone develop the talent to stop him - yeah I know, makes perfect sense, not! But of course, eventually Rey convinces him to train her.

Meanwhile, the First Order (= baddie alliance) prepares to eradicate the Rebellion fleet that's already in retreat for good - and somehow they have a tracking device that can trace the fleet even through hyperspace jumps ... which should be totally impossible unless something something. There's of course Finn (John Boyega), former Stormtrooper turned Rebellion hero, who figures a certain tracking device he has left to Rey has to do with it, and now he ... somehow together with young guard Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) figures might not be tracked if they disable the tracker on the First Order mothership, but for that they need a master codebreaker (Benicio Del Toro) who they track down on a gambling planet, taking unauthorized leave from the fleet in the process.

Kylo Ren manages to make contact with Rey and tries to draw her to the dark side - but she tries to draw him to the side of good, and when he eventually manages to capture her and to deliver her to super-baddie Snoke (Andrew Serkis), she somehow or other makes him kill Snoke and his guards, but then they turn against one another - or something.

Anyways, in the meantime, the Rebellion has been eradicated down to one mothership which the rebels now evacuate as a smokescreen - but the First Order sees through this and they want to crush the Rebellion's attempt to flee and regroup - but it's Admiral Leia Organa's (Carrie Fisher) heroic second in command (Laura Dern) who goes on a suicide mission to make sure the goodies get a jump start - even if they're still heavily outgunned.

Oscar Isaac returns as hot-headed Poe, who has a talent for making all the wrong decisions for all the right reasons ...

Being the third movie of the Star Wars-relaunch after Disney bought the property, this is probably also the best so far, as it isn't half as much a slavish fan film of the original trilogy as The Force Awakens was, nor is it as indifferent about its characters as Rogue One (which seemed a bit too hell-bent to kill all its leads to avoid explanations why they didn't pop up in later movies). Basically this one's a fun spectacle movie that at least at times shoots for originality and/or irony ... but it's still not a perfect movie, even within its genre: Basically the film just is too long and tries to carry too many narrative threads all at once, narrative threads that don't always go too well together regarding tone: While the whole bit about Rey and Luke (and Kylo Ren to some extent) is probably the most significant to Star Wars mythology, it's also too sombre, too played out, and also too predictable, ultimately, while the whole subplot about Finn and Rose on the casino planet is easily the most entertaining, and the one with the most character development and growth, it's not given enough space within the movie, and Poe's character arc, while not siginificant for the story as a whole (I know what some of you will say, but no, it really isn't), would have deserved much more room and siginificance as well. So basically, this should have been 2 or even 3 90 minute movies rather than one clocking in at 150, and things would have been so much better.

Still, nice spectacle - but for non-fans of the series it's little above that.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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