The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Where do I begin?

I went into the theater with a low bar of expectation set in my head. The reviews online weren't great, but some movies resonate differently with different people. I tried to put that preconception away and enjoy the movie. 

I couldn't.

The Rise of Skywalker is a bad movie. 

I'm sure people will disagree with me on this, for instance, people who don't watch movies, but as someone who has a deep love for the Star Wars franchise, I didn't like this movie at all. It's hard to find something I like about it, but I'll try for the sake of a balanced review. 

Emperor Palpatine is fucking badass, especially when he was attached to the crane. I wish they would have made a more dramatic reveal of the machinery that was keeping him alive because it was one of the coolest parts of the movie. It was grotesque and unnatural, perfect for a Sith lord. The way they skimmed over it felt like a huge waste of a big reveal. I think the whole idea of keeping him in the franchise was a good move, I just didn't like the way it was executed. For one, revealing him within the first minutes of the movie felt so underwhelming. A big build-up over the course of the movie would've made it memorable, the reveal of the one pulling the strings, the final showdown. Instead, the movie rushed straight into it and didn't even bother to make it a surprise. They spoiled it in the opening text for god's sake. 

Kylo Ren's story arc felt right if a bit predictable. You could've seen it coming from a mile away, and when the moment came for him to switch sides, it was really underwhelming. Aside from that, he's one of the better-acted characters in the movie, Adam Driver does a good job of giving him a 'tortured antagonist' feel. He's a memorable character, but he could've been so much more if it weren't for a flawed and awkward script.

The score was Star Wars, I guess. It was good, not great. Didn't save the movie.

Now that I've got the good parts out of the way, let's talk about what this movie got wrong.

The pacing. Oh lord, the pacing. The first half of the movie felt like I'd just snorted a line of Adderall and couldn't piece together a coherent thought. It rushed from moment to moment, without giving any time for the significance of any of them to sink in. Maybe they realized that the script was terrible, so they rushed through to make sure no one remembered it? It seems as likely an explanation as any. 

There wasn't any meaning to anything people did in the first half, the movie just felt like it was trying to stuff a bunch of Star Wars down our throat. Not good star wars either. Half of the moments in the first half just left me feeling confused. Why did they show me that? A lot of it had nothing to do with the rest of the movie, or if it did, it really fell flat because there wasn't enough pacing to relay the significance of each moment.

To be fair, the second half slowed down significantly. The damage was done though, my brain had already been fried.

The dialogue felt rushed and unnatural. There was a whole sub-plot about Finn and Po being mad at each other because Finn wouldn't tell Po a secret? What am I watching, fucking High School Musical? Are they about to break out into a musical number? The dialogue was childish, half the jokes didn't really land, it felt like Disney hired a bunch of middle school kids to come up with the lines. And the real kicker is, we never even find out what the secret was. Didn't fucking matter I guess.

At points, it felt like they were trying to pull an Avengers Endgame, the final battle kind of thing. What they didn't realize is that Endgame worked because it was 10 years in the making and had a cast of memorable characters. The Rise of Skywalker crammed its 2 hours 22 minutes full of characters I really couldn't give a shit about, and just took a big dookie on characters I wanted to give a shit about. There were so many rebels that the movie kept on wanting me to establish a connection with, that I really could care less about. Oh, the meth-head from Lost is a rebel now? That's cool I guess.

Characters like Finn just really had no purpose in the entire movie. Finn was one of my favorite characters in The Force Awakens. It felt like he would be the savior in the end, like his arc would run beside Rey. Instead, his entire purpose in The Rise of Skywalker is to follow Rey around and yell at her like a worried parent. It's a waste of an interesting character. He was set up to be something big, something important, and this movie delivers on none of that. He's sidelined for a plot that nobody asked for.

I know that there's a large portion of the Star Wars fanbase that really likes Rey, so here is where my opinion really comes into play. I hated her in this movie. She's unlikeable, she has no emotional arc, she's a flat character. She comes off as really arrogant, leaving her friends behind just because she feels like it. I get she's supposed to be conflicted between both sides of the force, but maybe for a lack of script or a lack of Daisy Ridley's part, she just feels unattached. Her emotions don't coincide with her situation at all. When she thought she killed Chewie, it was almost like she didn't care. 

Another thing that solidified the movie's shittiness for me was Kylo and Rey's kiss in his final moments. They've set up what felt like a brother-sister relationship for the past two movies, and they throw it all away in two seconds. What a waste. Also, Rey gets over it right away, didn't you just watch someone you had a deep intimate connection with die right in front of you? Sounds jarring to me.

Aside from these big examples, here are a few questions I have (in list form because there are too many):
  • how does Palpatine build a fleet of star destroyers and staff them without anyone knowing
  • what did Leia do to Kylo Ren? like she put her soul in him? what the fuck?
  • Kylo straight up hallucinated his dad, not a vision from the force. He hallucinated.
  • Why does Rey have a yellow lightsaber at the end of the movie? Am I supposed to be excited?
    • Why does Rey slide down the hill like something out of a shitty Christmas movie?
    • Why does Rey say she's a Skywalker when she clearly isn't? 
    • Who wrote Rey's character arc?
      • Why aren't they fired?

 So yeah, all in all, great movie, love Star Wars. I'm going on a binge of The Mandalorian and Rogue One to get this bitter taste out of my mouth. Save your money.

-FM

4 / 10



(Above) My favorite shot:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If.... (1968)

Image
Lindsay Anderson's 1968 counter-culture movie, If.... ,  is best described as messy and angry. Anderson's critique of British culture is incredibly clear. The movie's plot runs as follows: Teenage rebel Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) returns to his upper-crust English public school, caught between the sadistic older boys known as the Whips and the first-year students, known as Scum, who are forced to do their bidding. The petty thefts and anti-social behavior of Travis and his two henchmen, Johnny (David Wood) and Wallace (Richard Warwick), soon attract the attention of both the Whips and the school's out-of-touch administration and lead to an unexpected showdown. There's a lot to like and dislike about If...., so I'll start with what I thought was executed perfectly. McDowell's debut performance as Mick Travis is perfect, from the minute we meet Mick we see the mischieve behind his eyes. Dressed in all black, a whip calls him Guy Fawkes. McDowell helpe
Read More >>

Midsommar (2019)

Image
Ari Aster's 2019 Swedish cult movie started with a bang, drawing me in immediately. The first scene is gripping and haunting, as the camera slowly pans up and enters the carbon monoxide filled house. In an effort to dart around spoilers, I'll stop here and encourage readers to first watch the movie but needless to say Midsommar begins perfectly, setting the tone and theme that will dictate what the rest of the movie will be like. But then, the movie slowly falls from its interesting premise and into its surrealist abyss. The plot runs as follows: Dani (Pugh) and Christian (Reynor) are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite t
Read More >>

Good Time (2017)

Image
I love this movie, not only is this neon-drenched movie a masterclass in the crime thriller genre, but it's certainly a testament to Robert Pattinson's versatile acting. Brilliantly directed by the Safdie Brother, the movie not only immerses the audience but also poses some thought-provoking questions regarding the United States' judicial system and the white privilege that comes with it. The plot runs as follows: A bank robber, Connie, (Pattinson) stops at nothing to free his mentally ill brother, Nick, (Ben Safdie) from prison after a bank job goes wrong. Connie launches himself into a nightlong odyssey through New York's dark and dangerous criminal underworld. For starters, Robert Pattinson is amazing. First time I watched this movie I barely recognized him. He captures the role fully, his eyes constantly darting and his body rigid and tense at all times. He brings the character of Connie to full front, embodying this antihero to the fullest. Not at one moment d
Read More >>