JORDAN’s review published on Letterboxd:
7/10 porgs
"Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you see it. You'll never survive the night."
I'm very torn.
I'm conflicted on this movie because the Rey/Kylo element of this film is so good. And everything else is so not.
Overall I thought it was just very disjointed in terms of its structure. Some scenes were just too quick. An example of this is I saw this film with some friends and when a Rose and Finn scene came on. My friend saw it as an opportune time to take a obviously much needed pee break. However as soon as he left the theater. Seconds after he went through the door...
Seconds.
The film cut back to Rey. That's just too quick of a scene. Another issue with this film is despite it being the longest Star Wars film to date, it felt too rushed. There were never any moments where the film could just breathe like Force Awakens. Just really choppy and didn't flow.
I didn't hate this movie though. There are some things that I liked. Adam Driver has probably been the best thing about this new trilogy. I think it's fair to say that he's one of the most interesting villains we've had in a while. All his motives make complete sense but at the same time he's still unpredictable. So full of rage and emotion and not calculating at all.
Also this film has one of the most epic and gorgeous looking lightsaber duels in any Star Wars film so far. Everything about it was so perfect. I was moderately intrigued by the whole Luke and Rey dynamic but sadly I feel that it only scratched the surface and didn't really go very far. As it wasn't given enough time and we kept going back to some arc about leadership and animal cruelty is bad and just...uninteresting things.
Also the climax of the film was very nifty and I liked it because it was something different and neat. It worked well and I enjoyed it. Also it's a salt planet not a snow planet. So you can't say it's like Empire. Because it's salt. Huge difference. Salt. Not snow. Salt.
So pretty much a big ol' mixed bag in my opinion. There's a good movie in there. Also I don't know why but some scenes just felt so awkward. Like the dialogue felt off sometimes and some jokes didn't land. Maybe I'll warm up to it on repeats. However as of now, I'm very mixed about the film as a whole.
It was alright. Some neat stuff. Some bad stuff. Some great stuff. Some good stuff. Some porg stuff. All just thrown right on the screen.
