Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a fun movie with no spine

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker abound

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is finally in theaters. Billed as the ninth and final film in the Skywalker Saga, Rise had some pretty big shoes to fill — shoes left empty by Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi.

Director J.J. Abrams — who re-introduced the world to Star Wars with 2015’s The Force Awakens — returned to bookend the sequel trilogy. And with a bit of clever editing, he was able to have the original cast together again in one film: Mark Hamill (Luke), Harrison Ford (Han) and our dearly departed Carrie Fisher (Leia).

The big three weren’t the only ones making a return in Episode IX, as Emperor Palpatine and Lando Calrissian both show up. But first, let’s get into the opening of the movie. Oh, and by the end of this review, it’s my hope that I’ll have properly explained why I think J.J. Abrams owes Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) an apology.

After the usual Star Wars crawl, we’re shown Kylo Ren rampaging his way through entire swaths of the native inhabitants of a planet. The natives are hiding a Sith artifact called a Wayfinder. Once he finds it, Kylo plugs the device into his ship’s navicomputer, which takes him to the outer reaches of the galaxy, where the Sith planet Exogal — and Emperor Palpatine — await him.

It’s here where Kylo hears the voices of Palpatine, Snoke and even Darth Vader. Apparently, Palps has been pulling the strings all along. It ends up he survived — kind of — his fall down the shaft of the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

True to his petulant child persona, Kylo Ren thinks he can threaten Emperor Palpatine’s disembodied voice with his lightsaber. Palpatine mocks him for this, because even a guy who has been presumed dead for nigh on 30 years now doesn’t respect Ren. But that’s okay, because just like he did with Kylo’s grandfather Anakin, he begins to manipulate the newly self-appointed Supreme Leader of the First Order. “Bring me Rey, and I’ll give you all of my forces, which include hundreds, maybe even thousands of Super Star Destroyers outfitted with Death Star technology,” Palpatine says. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but you get the idea. Palps has been building vast Sith fleets, in the outer reaches of space, with each Star Destroyer having the ability to destroy entire planets. Why are the Sith so overpowered?

Anyway, Palpatine has what I’m sure the creative minds at Lucasfilm thought would be an original and exciting new name for his army: the “Final Order.” Ugh, just saying that name out loud makes me wish I’d never elected to see this movie in theaters. Alas, I did, and here we are.

Emperor Palpatine on Exogal in Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker. Disney/Lucasfilm.

There are some cool things about Exogal that you should know. It is, in fact, an ancient Sith planet. The chamber in which Kylo descends to find the source of those voices in his head is inside an ancient Sith temple. Palpatine — while also growing his military might during his visit to the Sith spa — has garnered quite the following, and there are thousands of creepy worshipers attending his body’s every need.

I say “body” because that’s all he is when Kylo Ren first finds him. He’s a corpse with milky white eyes, and he is truly terrifying. In terms of scare factor, the only Star Wars scene I can think of to compare it to is the Darth Vader rampage scene at the end of Rogue One.

For 40-ish years now, we’ve seen Ian McDiarmid masterfully portray a Sith who had ambitions of being the greatest Sith Lord who ever lived. Throughout the prequel trilogy, he manipulated an impressionable Anakin Skywalker, which caused him to become Darth Vader and slaughter the Jedi. In the original trilogy, Palpatine was a puppet master attempting to seduce Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side, and now, in the sequel trilogy, he may have turned in his scariest performance to date.

Seriously though, I don’t want to understate how truly terrifying Palpatine was as a corpse. Okay, I’ve said enough on that topic for now. We’re next treated to Poe, Finn, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 on a mission to find out if the rumors of Palpatine’s return were true. It’s weird just how matter of factly everyone in the galaxy takes this news, especially seeing as how no one believed the Jedi and Luke Skywalker ever existed in The Force Awakens.

Next, we’re shown Rey and BB-8 training on a forested planet. The Resistance is mustering its meager forces — which basically means anyone who wasn’t on the Millennium Falcon and who would come to the distress call made by General Leia in the final moments of The Last Jedi — and this planet is where they’re parking their rides. It’s clear from the jump that Rey’s powers in the Force have grown exponentially since Episode VIII, as her first scene is of her just relaxing about 10 feet in the air with all the rocks in her immediate area floating around her.

Then there’s a training montage: Leia shows up in time to tell Rey she’s got more work to do, and before taking off on her CrossFit run, Rey looks back and says, “Yes, Master.” That was a great moment and another wonderful payoff from The Last Jedi.

Remember when — in that movie — Leia turned into Mary Poppins after her ship was destroyed and her body subconsciously used the Force to pull her from the cold vacuum of space to a hatch door where she was taken in and eventually healed? Well, that seemingly silly moment was confirmation that Leia was strong in the Force, and in The Rise of Skywalker, we learn just how powerful she was.

It’s quickly shown that Rey is still having trouble controlling her powers, and Kylo Ren interrupts her run with one of those Facetime calls, making her mad as she slings her lightsaber in a whirling dervish of an arc that cuts down all the trees in its path. One tree falls on BB-8, and Rey feels bad like she should.

Back at the base, the Resistance pilots and ground crews are rushing to put out fires that have engulfed the Falcon. Apparently, Poe used a method of traveling called skip-jumping, or something akin to that, where he engages the ship’s hyperdrive in order to make a series of small jumps. This helped him lose their First Order tail, but it put the ship through the wringer, which upsets Chewbacca and Rey.

Poe and Finn bring news that Palpatine has indeed returned and there is a Resistance spy working in the ranks of the First Order. Rey uses the Force and decides she needs to go on a solo mission to find the location of the other Wayfinder. Poe, Finn, Chewy and the droids (Threepio, Artoo, and BB-8) refuse to let her leave by herself, and insist on accompanying her.

The first stop is an icy-looking planet where we’re introduced to Keri Russell’s character, Zorii Bliss. She looks and sounds cool, and she and Poe have a history, but other than introducing the gang to a tiny little guy named Babu Frik she doesn’t do a lot. Here’s what you need to know about this tiny little guy: He’s about a foot tall, is almost…I said almost…as cute as Baby Yoda, and he knows how to re-program C-3PO so he can read the Sith language they find on a dagger.

The gang heads to a desert planet where the inhabitants are celebrating their ancestors. Apparently, line-dancing is a thing in that galaxy far, far away, and I’m strangely okay with it. On this planet, we learn that there was one person responsible for the murder of Rey’s parents (oh yeah, did I forget to mention Abrams kind of, sort of retconned the “filthy junk traders” story?) and their ship is located in the middle of the desert.

Because of Kylo Ren once again Force-Skyping with Rey when she least expected it, he learns where they are and dispatches his stormtroopers to apprehend her. Let me tell you, Reylo is real, and the more these two share a Force bond, the more you kind of wish Disney would just let them bang and get it over with because they ooze sexual tension.

Also, their bond is allowing them to do more things. For instance, Kylo was able to snatch a necklace from around Rey’s neck, which told him which planet they were on. This is important for the ending, but it suffices to say that Rey realizes they have a problem, and insists they abandon the Falcon.

Once they find the ship they’re looking for, Rey recognizes it as the one her parents took after abandoning her on Jakku, and understandably starts to get emotional. Once on board, they find the mummified corpse of the guy who killed Rey’s parents, as well as a Sith dagger that they find out holds the key to the second Wayfinder.

Oh yeah, and they fall into a weird pit in the middle of the desert, where, as it turns out, a huge snake-like creature resides. The snake thing is angry because someone tried to kill it and it has a huge gash along its tail. Rey, sensing the creature is in pain, reaches down and uses the Force to heal it. Rey can now heal people. This is also important for the ending.

Anyway, Kylo and his Knights of Ren show up, along with his personal Star Destroyer, and they begin searching for our heroes. Rey senses Kylo is there, and wanders out into the desert to confront him. Meanwhile, Poe tries to repair the ship they’re on, and Finn notices Rey is acting weird so he sends Chewbacca out to make sure she’s okay…like she needed the help, but whatever.

Once outside the ship, Chewbacca begins to call to Rey but she’s only focused on Kylo Ren’s TIE Silencer rapidly heading her way, so she doesn’t notice when a Knight of Ren (no, I don’t know their names; let’s just call him one of six) captures the Wookiee and places him on a transport vessel leaving the planet, heading for Supreme Leader Kylo’s Star Destroyer.

You’ve seen what happens next. So enjoy a spoof of what actually happened:

Finn sees Rey has engaged Kylo Ren, and he can’t help Chewbacca because the Knights of Ren are closing in on the ship, so he gets Rey’s attention and points to the transport ship about to head into space and yells something about Chewy being on board.

Rey, already unnerved by the revelation that her parents were murdered and did not sell her for booze money, uses the Force to grab the ship out of the sky and holds it in place. Kylo, emerging from the wreckage of his TIE Silencer — after Rey’s backflip sliced its wing off — sees the incredible power she possesses and attempts to match her. Just like the Throne Room scene in The Last Jedi when the pair fought for control of Luke’s lightsaber, they fight for control of the ship, and when Rey realizes Kylo’s winning, she loses control and sends a shock of Force lightning into it, destroying it and killing all aboard.

Everyone screams “CHEWY!” when they see what happened, and stand around remembering the good old days. Also, Rey tells them they have to board Kylo’s Star Destroyer in order to retrieve the Sith dagger.

When they do, Rey senses Chewbacca is actually alive — as he was on the second transport — and tells Poe and Finn to go find him and the Falcon and return to base. She and Kylo once again have a Force connection fight where he tells her he was wrong about her parents. Rey defeats Kylo this time, and he returns to Palpatine to report on his failure. Palps basically shames him, which I guess is a great motivator for his personality, and he redoubles his effort.

It’s also revealed that General Hux is Fulcrum, the Resistance spy. He’s not doing it because he believes in the Resistance’s cause, he’s doing it because he’s petty and wants Kylo Ren dealt with. He asks Finn to shoot him in the shoulder, so as not to give away the fact that it was he who helped the gang escape Ren’s destroyer, but Finn hilariously shoots him in the leg. Later, as Hux is giving his report to Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), Pryde takes Hux’s blaster and shoots him in the chest, killing him.

Okay, so the good guys head to Endor where the wreckage of the Death Star is floating in an ocean. Once again, Kylo figures out where they are headed, and meets Rey in Palpatine’s old throne room. He confronts her and they have a knockdown, drag-out lightsaber duel.

They fight to a standstill and Rey ends up using Ren’s lightsaber against him, puncturing his chest. She was only able to gain such a victory, however, because both she and Kylo sensed the death of General Leia, who attempted to use her Force powers to bridge the gap from her forested jungle to where they fought.

It’s a somber moment. Kylo Ren realizes he’s about to die. Rey takes pity on him and heals him like she did the snake. She says she felt Leia go too and says she’s sorry and that she would have joined Ben and taken his hand, not Kylo Ren’s. Rey then jumps into Ren’s TIE Silencer and flies to Ahch-To, where Luke Skywalker hid away from the galaxy for close to 30 years.

She burns Kylo’s ship, thinking she has just scuttled any chance of leaving the island, then throws Luke’s lightsaber in the fire. However, a ghostly hand catches it. It’s Luke, and he’s there to impart some Jedi wisdom on her. He also shows her where he hid Leia’s lightsaber. It’s gorgeous. He shows her his X-Wing (the famous Red Five).

Rey then flies to Exogal, leaving beacons on a constantly updating star chart so the Resistance can join her for one last fight against Emperor Palpatine’s Final Order (ew). Everybody’s sad that Leia died, and it’s up to Lando to cheer everyone up. It’s then decided that Poe and Finn are co-leaders of the Resistance, and they draw up plans to attack.

It’s here I feel I need to mention the fact that Finn keeps trying to tell Rey something. He’s got this feeling…and while it’s hinted at first that the feeling is love for Rey, it’s later revealed to be Finn’s sensitivity to the Force. Also, Finn meets a group of former First Order troopers led by Naomi Ackie’s Jannah. The two become fast friends over their shared history and love of space horses.

So the Resistance drops out of Hyperspace and begins attacking the Final Order. Palpatine lures Rey to the planet’s surface where he reveals to her that she is none other than his granddaughter. Meanwhile, Ben Solo arrives wearing plain clothes. Gone are his cloak and mask, which is Star Wars speak for ‘he’s been redeemed.’

The Knights of Ren, under the control of Palpatine, surround Ben and begin pummeling him. However, Rey uses their connection and Force-mails Lei’s lightsaber to him, which he then uses in a dazzling display of martial prowess. Then the two face off against Palpatine, who mocks them and throws Ben down a shaft…just like the shaft his grandfather tossed Palpatine down in Return of the Jedi. Man, this movie really is not afraid of fanservice.

Rey fights Palpatine, at first, but he’s too strong for her, and seeing the Resistance fleet get destroyed by Pryde’s armada, she says she will join him. He tells her all she needs to do is strike him down in anger, then she can become the Empress of the Final Order.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you she had a vision of what that looked like. It’s the scene where she sees a Dark Side version of herself, complete with a red, dual-bladed lightsaber. The scene doesn’t quite stick the landing like Abrams was hoping, because Dark Rey actually hisses like a cat and that made me laugh.

Palps realizes he can use Rey and Kylo’s Force connection to heal himself, and so he does, which makes him look like he did in Revenge of the Sith, complete with bright red robes.

He then turns his attention to the Resistance fleet and shoots lightning skyward, frying any ship in the vicinity. As all hope seems lost, Rey summons Leia’s lightsaber and rebounds the Force lightning back into Palpatine’s face, killing him once and for all.

During the final moments of the battle, Kylo climbs out of the shaft, and seeing Palpatine has nearly killed Rey, he uses his newfound healing power (how fortuitous!) he heals her so she can fight the Emperor once more. After the fight, Reylo is sealed with a kiss. We stan.

The Final Order fleet is still there, however, and just as Poe is about to give a sad “goodbye everyone”
speech, Lando breaks through the coms channel and tells him to look up. There, on the horizon, are thousands upon thousands of Resistance ships. With their numbers redoubled, the Resistance finally wins the war against the First Final Order.

Finally, Rey arrives on Tatooine where she buries Luke and Leia’s lightsabers at the Lars homestead where Luke was raised. A random stranger wanders by and asks who she is. “I’m Rey,” she says. The stranger then asks, “Rey who?” and then Rey says, “Rey Skywalker.”

The end. Oof, what a clunky, mess of an ending. Now for what I promised earlier. I feel like J.J. Abrams owes Adam Driver an apology because he was barely used in the film. After a fantastic outing in The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren was used as a plot device, and with a talent like Driver in the cast, you shouldn’t waste every scene you potentially have.

That’s just one of the many reasons The Rise of Skywalker fell short for me. Sure, it had its moments, and if you put my feet to the fire, I’d tell you it was fun. But nothing throughout this final movie in the Skywalker Saga struck me as original. And love it or hate it, at least The Last Jedi had that is spades.

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