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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a matter of days away with the first-look reviews dropping today at 5pm GMT.
The follow-up to JJ Abrams' 2015 sequel The Force Awakens reunites Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac for a film that also sees the return of Luke Skywalker and General Leia Organa in what will be Carrie Fisher's final appearance following her death in December 2016.
Initial verdicts of the film - directed by Rian Johnson - flooded in on Twitter over the weekend with some deeming it the best Star Wars films since The Empire Strikes Back.
In any case, Disney and Lucasfilm seem to be happy with the outcome - it was revealed last month that Johnson will oversee a brand new trilogy of films after the release of Episode IX set in “...a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never explored.”
Below are the reviews of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Domhnall Gleeson, Laura Dern, Benicio del Toro and Kelly Marie Tran also star. The film is released in the UK on 14 December.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer - shot-by-shot breakdown
The Mirror has also awarded five-stars: "Writer-director Rian Johnson keeps the film fresh while working within rigid constraints laid down by existing Star Wars lore and the dictates of the powerful Disney empire. He sneaks in comments about exploitation, oppression, poverty and who fuels the wealth of arms manufacturers."
ScreenCrush award four-stars, writing: "Amidst the melancholy, there is a ton of joy and excitement in The Last Jedi; like the Force, this Star Wars is all about balance. Rian Johnson understands better than a lot of people who’ve worked on Star Wars — including George Lucas at times — that this saga is not about lightsabers or cool spaceships and aliens. At its core, Star Wars is about hope and inspiration.
Ian Freer for Empire: "It doesn’t all work. The middle section loses its shape and is subject to longueurs. Finn and Rose’s mission takes them to Canto Bight, a kind of Monte Carlo peopled by extras from Babylon 5, and feels like it is just ticking the Weird Alien Bar box started by the Cantina. A ride on space horses also feels like a needless diversion, as does Benicio Del Toro’s space rogue, whose strange, laconic presence never really makes its mark. But in its last hour, Johnson serves up bold, gut-wrenching narrative moves you should discover on your own. Throughout, there are beats from The Empire Strikes Back playbook — a version of the Dark Side cave, walkers and speeders battling across a glacial plain — but this is not The Dark Middle Act, it’s a multicoloured adventure that juggles different moods and tones. Johnson even bravely channels Return Of The Jedi, to the extent that Episode VIII wraps up leaving Episode IX with almost a clean slate. And that, for an Act II, is no mean feat."
The Times offer a glowing five-stars, calling The Last Jedi the best Star Wars film yet: "It took them 40 years, but they’ve finally done it. The best Star Wars film of the series. There. That’s it. It’s that simple. The Last Jedi, the ninth official movie (including last year’s unforgivable spin-off, Rogue One) in a saga that launched the modern age of blockbusters, is a film of wit and wonder, of eye-gouging visual spectacle, and one that is buttressed by entirely unexpected, and frequently devastating, emotional power."
The Verge write: "The Last Jedi feels like a deliberate, thought-through corrective. It sums up its theme in its title: it’s trying, as respectfully and carefully as possible, to let go of some of the old traditions, and look for the next steps for a world that’s rapidly expanding, and needs to escape its old, familiar conflicts if it’s going to grow. Johnson acknowledges, through the characters and the dialogue, that letting go of familiar things is hard, and he holds his audience’s hands through the process. But he’s also admirably merciless about it. Audiences will likely come away from The Last Jedi with a lot of complaints and questions. But they’re at least likely to feel they’re in the hands of someone who cares about the series as much as they do, someone who loves its history, but sees the wide-open future ahead of it as well."
The BBC awarded the movie four-stars, writing: "The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi both give you the impression that their respective directors, Abrams and Johnson, knew that they had only one shot at making a Star Wars episode, and so were determined to fill it with every single Skywalker-and-Stormtrooper-related image that had buzzed around their heads since they were children. It’s an understandable impulse but a damaging one. The Last Jedi is a whopping two-and-a-half hours, and it would have been much improved if an editor had taken a lightsaber to its less crucial sections."
Indie Wire have given the movie an A-, writing: "Much has been made of filmmakers getting lured into the machinery of franchise filmmaking and losing their autonomy in the process. At one point, Johnson seemed as vulnerable as anyone, and news that he has already pitched a whole new Star Wars trilogy registered as renewing a deal with the devil. Now, he’s a reason to keep paying attention as the franchise continues to grow. Johnson’s ability to deliver a fresh and engaging riff on this beast of an enterprise suggests that not every free-spirited storyteller can be corrupted by Hollywood’s dark side, and some may even give it a new hope."
Another positive write-up from America, Entertainment Weekly giving the movie B+, their critics writing: "The Last Jedi is a triumph with flaws. But through those flaws, it leaves us with a message as old as time. Our heroes don’t live forever. Death is inevitable. But their battle, if passed down to the right hands, will continue along with their memories. Both in front of and behind the camera, Star Wars has been passed to the right hands. The Force will live on. In these troubled, angry, and divisive times, that message of resistance isn’t just the stuff of innocuous tentpole diversions, it’s the closest thing we have to A New Hope."
Hannah Woodhead for Little White Lies: "Johnson nails the crucial moments in his script, creating a sense of slack-jawed wonderment not seen in this series since James Earl Jones uttered the immortal words: “I am your father.” He combines these with a healthy dose of intergalactic weirdness, including the Ewok-esque Porgs, which serve as a convenient merchandising point and source of light slapstick humour. One of the things that has always set Star Wars apart from similar sci-fi blockbusters is its total earnestness. It invites us to believe in a human struggle taking place in a fantastic setting. The Last Jedi is no exception, transporting us to distant reaches of a galaxy where anything is possible. Where anything has to be possible."
Mike Ryan writes for Uproxx: "In The Last Jedi, there’s a continuing theme of destroying what came before to make room for something new. This could be taken a lot of ways, especially since Kylo Ren is the one in favour of this idea. It’s a movie about change and regret and getting older, but also about hope for what’s to come."
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