Meh. It's a lot of battling. If you like battling and movie-plot tactical space-field maneuvering of the underdog out of tight spots - you'll have a great time. It's not that I don't enjoy good action and thoughtful military strategy, it's just that this film has 3 film's worth of that and less than 1 film worth of character development and theme. It seldom engages with the audience on any other level than pow pow pow (which in itself seems rather ridiculous anyway, that despite technical advances all battles are reduced to small weapons.)

Now that said, the film does sport strong moments. I particularly enjoy the character of Kylo Ren. He's played well by Adam Driver with a perfectly unsettling mixture of crazy strength and painful vulnerability. The filmmakers masterfully keep us on the edge of our chairs as to which side of the darkness he'll ultimately flip. He's the quintessential wild card.

I also enjoyed Ray's internal struggle, but aside from the wonderfully realized connection between she and Kylo, it's far underplayed here. And Luke's is even more flimsy. Had this film dropped 2/3rds of its battles and instead robustly explored the interconnected-ness of Ray, Luke and Kylo - that would be very interesting to me.

Lastly, I also missed those wonderfully hypnotizing visual breakthroughs of the first released film in the series. We had never felt like we were flying in space. It made audiences giddy. While Last jedi is quite apt, it fails to wow visually. Except, maybe for the salt flats. Artistically, the blood-red trails in the salt during battle made for a beautifully artistic experience.

-- Books by Author/Illustrator Ross Anthony --