The Rise of Skywalker is a joyless disaster

Does the Rise of Skywalker tell an entertaining, coherent, and worthwhile story? The short answer is: No.

Disney’s new Star Wars movie, the Rise of Skywalker, is a mess.

From its opening scenes, which show our heroes in hot pursuit of a MacGuffin, to its final line of dialogue, which inspired audible groans from moviegoers (myself included), this film is a joyless disaster. How sad that the third and final chapter in a trilogy that launched in 2015 with such high hopes would end like this — not with a fond and timely farewell, but with a wheezing death gasp.

The Rise of Skywalker fails as a movie for three reasons: its pacing, its script, and its attempt to do too much at once.

On the first count, the sequencing and placement of the film’s events, the Rise of Skywalker is nearly incomprehensible. It is a convoluted collision of explosions and action, broken up occasionally by lines such as, “Don’t tell me what things look like. Tell me what things are,” “Nothing’s impossible,” and “Never be afraid of who you are.”

None of it makes much sense as the sequence of events has been slapped together by a completely confounding editing process. One moment there is a breakneck chase through outer space, and the next moment a character is meditating peacefully in a forest on a faraway planet. Immediately after all of that, our heroes hold a meeting to explain a new threat to the galaxy, which is then followed by a vibrant, melodious holiday festival on some alien planet, and then another breakneck chase. It is like this for nearly the entire film. The obvious problem is this: When something important or ostensibly moving does happen, the viewer is only partially involved because he is still playing catch-up from the last three sequences. Viewers are never given a chance to appreciate the gravity or the joy of any given moment because not even the film is interested in sticking around.

The heroes rush blindly from scene to scene, with few breaks in between to explain the “what” and the “why” of their actions, because the script requires it. Between quests, characters totally unrelated to the last quest discuss the next quest all while speaking in fortune-cookie-style language about their hopes, dreams, and sometimes the Force. Meanwhile, the movie itself moves ponderously in the general direction of what it believes is a point.

On the second count, the script, the biggest problem is that there are no stakes in the Rise of Skywalker. I am not exaggerating when I say death itself is not an obstacle for our heroes. Disney has fully embraced the idea that “no one is ever really gone.” Other problems include that the script constantly rewrites the rules of its own universe, leaving the viewer distrustful of the narrator, and that nearly all of the characters have contradictory, poorly defined, or totally baffling motivations (A once-prominent villain commits treason to get revenge on a co-worker?). Major and minor subplots are brought up only to be abandoned; threads from the previous two films are left untouched (has there ever been a bigger waste of Max Von Sydow?); moments that come close to being exciting or even compelling fall flat because the script never dedicates sufficient time to explain what is happening, who these people are, and why we should care; and characters who played significant roles in the first two chapters are sidelined for new characters that we are told are more important and powerful, but apparently not important and powerful enough to mention until the third and final installment in the series.

On the final count, the scope of the film, the Rise of Skywalker attempts to do everything for everyone, ensuring it does nothing for anyone.

Disney set out to accomplish two goals with this movie: Undo some of the damage of 2017’s the Last Jedi and conclude a three-part story. Each task is large enough to require a movie of its own. The Rise of Skywalker tries to do it all in 2 hours and 22 minutes. As you can imagine, it does not work. Sitting there in the theater Thursday evening felt more like a chore than leisure.

The Rise of Skywalker’s attempts to distance itself from the Last Jedi distract from the former's core mission of ending the trilogy with a strong third act. The film ends up splitting its attention unevenly between two major assignments, resulting in a final product that is an unfocused, disjointed mess because it tries to go backward as much as it tries to go forward. Further, the Rise of Skywalker’s attempt to perform retroactive continuity on the Last Jedi does not come across as clever or genuine. It certainly does not come across as subtle. It comes across plainly as a corporation’s calculated attempt to recalibrate after its last two efforts to capitalize on its $4 billion investment came up disappointingly short at the box office.

All that said, there are some bright spots in the Rise of Skywalker, including the occasional awe-inspiring visual. If only there were a comprehensible or meaningful story to go along with those beautiful images.

There will no doubt be endless discussion in the coming months about the finer details of the movie and what it all means in the broader context of a 42-year-old franchise whose fans are fiercely dedicated to its lore. For now, the only question that anyone should ask on the movie’s opening weekend is this: Does the Rise of Skywalker tell an entertaining, coherent, and worthwhile story?

The short answer is: No.

The longer answer is: No, and if you are starved this December for a movie starring Adam Driver, go see the one where he gets divorced for two hours. It is far less dreary.