The Guardian, Jordan Hoffman (Score: 100): The movie snaps together like a jigsaw puzzle, a series of concluding beats that seem inevitable and perfect, and designed to please all parties, so long as you don’t dwell on the logic too much.
Arizona Republic, Bill Goodykoontz (Score: 70): How do you end the most iconic franchise of all time? (Don’t panic, there will be more movies, just not a part of this particular universe.) You end it by trying to please everyone. Which can make it hard to please anyone. But Abrams is a crowd-pleaser and a good one. He’s made a film that is unquestionably entertaining and wraps things up in a way that will make fans happy.
Screen Rant, Molly Freeman (Score: 60): Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker gets bogged down in exposition and course-correcting The Last Jedi, but does have some fun moments and fan service.
Vox, Alissa Wilkinson (Score: 30): The Rise of Skywalker falls somewhere between an overstuffed fan-service finale and a yawnfest. If The Force Awakens kicked off a new cycle in the franchise and The Last Jedi set it up to push beyond its familiar patterns, The Rise of Skywalker for the most part runs screaming in the other direction.
(All previos critics form metacritic)
Scott Wampler: RISE OF SKYWALKER feels like what would happen if, instead of writing an actual screenplay for a STAR WARS movie, you went on Reddit and found a list of EPISODE IX demands written by an unhinged lunatic and then just shot that instead. (
https://twitter.com/ScottWamplerBMD/...88566688165890)
Rian Johnson Calls Pandering to 'Star Wars' Fans a "Mistake"