Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

93% on Rotten Tomatoes, out of 297 reviews

Ah, you should know the rest, including this being too long at 2 1/2 hours

I watched this on Friday night but I finally had the time today to complete this review. Most Star Wars movies are awesome in my eyes... boy did I not feel that way about The Last Jedi. I am not red-faced in anger like many of the most devoted fans are, but I am crestfallen I don't love the film like many do. Read all the details below, which do include some spoiler-ish material at the end:

NOTE: As this is always important when a Star Wars movie comes out, I will talk about spoilers, but only in the last part of this review and I will note when SPOILERS are coming and you can stop reading if you're one of the few not to have seen this already. It is awfully ironic that Disney had a pair of commercials which tell people not to spoil certain moments... then they show brief clips which beforehand I figured were taken out of context or misleading but I noticed played upon popular rumors I heard speculated months beforehand by some hardcores, meaning it was just speculation and nothing confirmed. I don't actively seek out such info, but sometimes I stumble across it. I won't reveal if those ads were misleading or not.

Also when talking about something from this franchise, I have to mention that since a kid I've been a big fan. No I was never a superfan who read any of the books or other media in the extended universe, but the original trilogy was awesome to me as a child... and is still awesome now. Nostalgia did play a part in me giving such high marks to both The Force Awakens and Rogue One, but even though both are flawed I thought they were a lot of fun. The prequels I never liked. If I was a kid when I saw them, perhaps. But I was 18, 21, and 24 years old when I saw them so it was easy to be critical.

I watched this on Friday night and somehow I dodged spoilers as if I was Han Solo piloting the Millennium Falcon through that asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back. I noticed that people on Letterboxd were over the moon or thought it was mediocre, while I was told beforehand by someone I know who had already seen it and looked on the #LastJedi hashtag on Twitter... besides people revealing the biggest moments, plenty were not happy with the film. I can understand why some would feel that way, and I even can understand why someone else I know-who is a huge franchise fan-hated the movie and was flummoxed over feeling this way, and he was not the only person at that level of fandom who had those feels. This being as polarizing as a DC film not named Wonder Woman was NOT what I was expecting beforehand but here we are.

Me, “hate” is not the word I'd use. “Disappointment” is a more accurate term for me. I did not like how this turned out, for the most part. It's not because “this was different”; I was fine beforehand hearing the early reviews say this was not the standard Star Wars tale. My issue was with the story, all its plot holes & moments of illogic, the bizarre off-putting bits, it being too long, some pointless plot threads, and one element I'll mention in the spoilers section. That is even with the strong moments you do get, pretty visuals and some nice acting from the leads. I will mention that no one ever says “I've got a bad feeling about this”, which is incredible to me. That alone will make some of the most devoted fans seething with rage.

Me not loving a Star Wars film (excluding the prequels) is incredibly unfortunate and yet I have to be honest here. It can be argued this is a microcosm of how modern Hollywood is but I don't want to go down that road here. I am sure I'll see it again on the big screen; if my opinion changes I'll do another review. If not... I don't fault people for loving the film; I just don't fully understand why, that's all.

HERE BE SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Plenty of people have (rightfully, in my opinion) slagged the story as it does have a lot of problems and not all of it makes any sense. Yet I haven't seen too many people anywhere on the Internet note my biggest issue. I haven't looked everywhere by any means but my biggest problem was with all the humor. It tries to be WAY funnier than the other films. Besides it being jarring and not even the sort of humor you got in the other films, a lot of the jokes were just dumb and unfunny. My sense of humor is off-kilter compared to most but I was incredibly aggravated by all the “funny” one-liners and jokes. It literally did ruin the dramatic moments of too many scenes. It was just dopey and totally unneeded. If I wanted to see a quip-filled space romp, I'd just rewatch Guardians of the Galaxy, which did it better and did not crap over a beloved franchise. It was actually worse than such things as Leia flying through outer space as if she was Mary Poppins and Luke milking an alien that has four human-like breasts in order to drink green milk, and those moments were real stupid.

It's a shame the movie has all those insufferable moments-including plenty of bits I won't reveal-as there are also strong moments and the idea of Luke, Rey and Kylo all being conflicted: great, even if it isn't always realized well. But then you get stupid crap like the biggest mysteries of The Force Awakens being flushed down the toilet and Kylo being shirtless in one scene, seemingly so everyone can make the “I hear Kylo Ren's shredded! I hear he has an 8-pack!” reference. No, just no.