Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise Of Skywalker (no spoilers)

(M) ★★

Director: JJ Abrams.

Cast: Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, Joonas Suotamo, Ian McDiarmid, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Naomi Ackie, Keri Russell, Billy Dee Williams.

The heroes were stunned to see the arrival of Thanos. And Khan.

So here we are at the end (allegedly). While Disney is going to keep pumping out Star Wars movies until the banthas come home, Episode IX - The Rise Of Skywalker is purported to be the end of the Episodes - the final outing of the Skywalker clan.

If this is true, it's kind of a big deal. Forty-two years of filmmaking - of groundbreaking storytelling that changed cinema in multiple ways - ends here. The pressure on director JJ Abrams is immense, but he flourishes in these situations. He pulled off a Star Trek reboot with grace and style, and then one-upped himself by launching the Star Wars sequel trilogy with the crowd-pleasing Episode VII - The Force Awakens.

But the stakes are even higher here, and unfortunately Abrams falters. The Rise Of Skywalker is like a hyperactive three-year-old - it's filled with boundless energy and is often entertaining, but mostly it's messy, directionless and doesn't know what it's doing.

Picking up a year after the events of The Last Jedi, we find prospective Jedi Rey (Ridley) training to sharpen her ways with the Force. Meanwhile the rebuilding Resistance is reeling from the news that an old enemy has returned - Emperor Palpatine, long thought dead, is back and threatening to build a new empire.

While it has its moments, The Rise Of Skywalker is a real letdown. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi knew what they wanted to be - the first dug deep into the nostalgia and flow of A New Hope, while the latter mimicked The Empire Strikes Back by upending what came before and carving a new path.

If we follow this pattern, The Rise Of Skywalker should be like Return Of The Jedi - fleet of foot and inspiring as it follows a clearheaded path through its spectacle and heartfelt moments. In many ways The Rise Of Skywalker strives to hit some of those same notes, but it's largely a mess of bad ideas, superfluous characters, poorly handled fan service, haphazard plotting and a lack of focus, culminating in a dull-looking finale.

The arcs of Rey and Kylo Ren (Driver) are again fascinating, building on the good work Rian Johnson did in The Last Jedi, but these are also fumbled in places. Ren's arc is rewarding but feels rushed, but he still fares better than Poe (Isaac) and Finn (Boyega) who are given no character development whatsoever.

The film moves at a good pace, bouncing through some nice set pieces early, but it finds its story bogged down in a lousy 'hunt for the McGuffin' arc that chews up a lot of time and proves frustratingly redundant. This idea was used to good effect in The Last Jedi's "casino" sideplot, but that helped develop the plot and characters - here it's a main plot point and it does little of either.

Elsewhere characters are either added for no real reason or given not enough to do - Ackie's Jannah, Nyong'o's Maz Kanata, the returning Lando Calrissian (Williams) and Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) are all shortchanged or irrelevant. The new character that works best is Russell's Zorri, who almost gives layers to Poe while stealing the few scenes she's in. More of her in the future Star Wars spin-offs would not be a bad thing.

It's hard to dissect The Rise Of Skywalker or fully explain what a bizarre mess its plot is without spoilers. But if not for the energy, pace, humour and heart bubbling through everything and giving every scene a kind of electricity, this film would be an even bigger let down. As it is, it's supremely underwhelming despite Abrams and his cast's enthusiasm for the material.

But it's really difficult to overlook that fact that the grand finale - the big finish of the whole damned nine-film saga - is largely grey and visually uninspiring. It's a shame, but we've been incredibly lucky with this franchise. The bad films are few and far between, and even those, like The Rise Of Skywalker, have their moments. For its resolution and sense of completeness, it is unmissable for Star Wars fans, but it's not the finale such a saga deserves.