Raul Marques’s review published on Letterboxd:
Bumping this half a star on a rewatch, because almost everything I initially felt some hesitation towards, including pretty major narrative decisions as well as entire sequences, legitimately gave me chills this time around.
(Is this what being a fanboy feels like?)
Anyway, I've also come to terms with the fact that this is probably the best Star Wars movie because beyond its unprecedented emotional resonance (at least for me, that is), it's easily the one with the best filmmaking by a goddamn country mile. The cross-cutting scenes between Kylo and Rey, the silent collision, the whole ordeal at Snoke's astonishingly bad-ass-looking throne room, Finn's big moment and the battles that bookend this are all among the series high-points.
Complaints about canon, abandon of internal logic and plot holes never particularly interested me, so here it wouldn't be different, but I'm legitimately fascinated about an underlying current of thought that weirdly defend that this film, in the light of both Disney's recent acquisition of 21st Century Fox and its widespread critical acclaim, means, or proves, the death of mainstream cinema as something capable of crafting art that's worth seriously thinking about.
Well, that's a thing I've said repeatedly while reviewing all of the Transformers franchise, but the symbiotic relationship between art and commerce in the 21st century (that was decidedly influenced by Lucas' merchandise-savvy original trilogy) made them indivisible from one another. And yet, even if one disagrees with the opinion that this approximation doesn't necessarily lessens recent blatantly four-quadrant blockbusters made by a handful of positively shady, downright evil media conglomerates, I don't think they could be possibly utilize this particular production as an example of this supposed cultural downfall.
On an entirely different note, I'm glad they finally made a Star Wars about a relatable experience; the personal turmoil that comes with acknowledging a mystifying crush on Adam Driver.
