Friday, December 20, 2019

The Rise of Skywalker, Reviewed

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been promised as the final entry in the nine-film series that began with 1977’s Star Wars—and it seems all that pressure got to it. As Richard Lawson writes in his review, director J.J. Abrams is “a talent, but he’s no match for a corporate mandate that heavy—his sleek, Spielbergian whimsy isn’t enough to cut through all the tortured brand maintenance.” After two years’ worth of blowback online over previous entry The Last Jedi, Lawson writes, Rise of Skywalker “feels cobbled together from notes stuffed in the suggestion boxes of Reddit and Twitter. Which is awfully cynical.” Don’t fret, though, there’s good to be had too—from the lingering wreck of the Death Star from Return of the Jedi to a cute, new grumpy-old-man alien who, in some spin-off that may very well be to come, “could be the miniature Mr. Wilson to Baby Yoda’s Dennis the Menace.”
Elsewhere in HWD—and speaking of Baby Yoda!—Anthony Breznican breaks down the latest episode of The Mandalorian, which revealed the little pistachio becoming even more powerful; Laura Bradley assesses the decade in horror and how it got “elevated,” even if that term has never been quite right; and cast members of Little Women join writer-director Greta Gerwig to break down a crucial scene, and sing the praises of chartreuse. Yes, chartreuse!