Priyanka’s review published on Letterboxd:
I wasn’t sure if I should write a review for this movie, simply because I’m still processing and, like so many others, I definitely need to give it another watch to truly understand how I feel about it. However, I think I need a space to consolidate my thoughts, so here we go.
The Last Jedi was personal, explosive, funny, and ballsy as hell, and I really enjoyed it. Johnson managed to tell several very personal stories within this massive scope, while maintaining the scale of the universe, which is no easy task. In terms of the battles, there were a couple where my mouth was just hanging open the whole time—I don’t care if they’ve been done before, there is truly nothing like seeing gigantic spaceships crush each other in outer space. It was definitely risky, radical almost in some of its narrative choices, but I thought most of it worked fairly well. There were some insane moments of high tension—I was literally holding my breath, but there were also several points in the film where I was crying my eyes out, so needless to say, I thought the balance was good. (Get it??? Balance??? The Force???? Ha ha ha……….)
Of course of course of course, it was not without flaws. The runtime got to me a little bit, and there were definitely points that I could feel its length. And as most franchise-blockbuster-big-explosion-esque movies do, there were some pacing issues. I can understand the complaint that the stakes seemed lower in this film, but I thought that swapping apocalyptic-level stakes for some great character moments was a fair exchange.
Other random thoughts:
-It was actually pretty funny
-Adam Driver continues to be one of the best casting choices of the new trilogy, he is so great in this role
-I love and miss Carrie Fisher so much
-Representation in these movies is so important and so great
-Oscar Isaac looks so damn good in this movie I am STILL recovering
