This is a hard film to review because it's so weird.
It plays like a direct sequel to THE FORCE AWAKENS, not THE LAST JEDI -- tonally, visually, it "fits" with that film, while avoiding basically anything to do with THE LAST JEDI outside of where the characters are "positioned" at the outset. It actually goes to great pains to avoid referencing anything that happened in THE LAST JEDI, while bringing back JJ Abrams' company players (Charlie from LOST even appears this time). On the other hand, there are actually fewer "nostalgia callbacks" than some people promised and the story isn't "recycled" completely -- yet that, alone, doesn't make it good.
It's a more entertaining film, and a more "respectable" sequel, than THE LAST JEDI, but it's frustrating because while you can see some areas where, yes, the story works, especially concerning the Rey and Kylo arcs -- those moments are fleeting and sabotaged by banal action, boring supporting characters, and a maddening number of things that never pay off. And there's also the nagging feeling that, had Abrams been around to "guide" the storyline through the 2nd installment (instead of hiring/firing Colin Trevorrow and then bringing in Rian Johnson, who also should've been axed), these three films may have had a fighting chance to at least function more coherently than they ultimately do.
I'm not sure if certain issues are due to the movie having been reshot but my guess is that some of it is connected to the re-editing -- and proof of that, without divulging too many spoilers, has to do with poor John Boyega. Let's just say Finn spends the whole movie saying "he has something to say to Rey", and it's referenced a HANDFUL OF TIMES, even joked about, and yet...he NEVER SAYS IT. EVER. I'm guessing that resolution was in the ending that was deep-sixed? Just bizarre.
I'll write a formal review over the weekend but briefly:
The Good:
*Adam Driver - Kylo Ren ended up being the best thing about this trilogy. The arc to the character was interesting and, had Abrams been around to write the 2nd film, maybe the pay off would have been stronger -- especially with more time devoted to that specific concept. Driver's performance is also "unpredictable" and I was compelled watching him to a degree nothing else in these movies can match. (Daisy Ridley, on the other hand, I became bored by -- she's not very emotive and once you watch her for 5 minutes, you've seen everything she can do).
*The Emperor's return actually explains a lot about this whole "First Order" thing -- but it would've made sense to introduce this element long ago, at least in the 2nd movie, instead of just popping up with it here out of nowhere. (Don't go looking for explanations either -- a single line about "unnatural elements of the Force", reprising that dialogue from REVENGE OF THE SITH, is all you'll get in terms of explaining his resurrection).
*Some interesting visual elements, including a lightsaber duel on the Death Star wreckage with giant waves surrounding Rey and Kylo, manage to hold one's attention.
The Not So Good:
*Too many characters cluttering the story -- ZZZ to all the scenes with Poe and Finn, neither of whom have a payoff -- with a main scenario that becomes incomprehensible very quickly (you'll be quickly trying to remember where they're all trying to go and what they're looking for)
*Disappointing waste of Keri Russell's time (and what was the point of her and Poe batting eyes at each other -- only to laugh it off at the end?)
*Horse-like creatures galloping on the wing of a star destroyer
*Numerous audience members laughed/groaned outloud at the kiss between two characters near the end
*Billy Dee Williams looked like he was wondering where the salad bar was. Seriously it's nice and all to "bring back Lando" but he appeared dazed and his eyes wandering off the frame whenever he wasn't speaking -- obviously another "finessed" performance, like Carrie Fisher's material, that was assembled in post-production. Unnecessary and obviously just brought in on the heels of SOLO to connect with that turkey.
The Disappointing:
*John Williams' score is the least of his works for this series. In keeping with the prior two scores, it's bombastic and exhausting, underscoring every scene, and dramatically doesn't lift the material the way so many of his scores have in his career. I detected next to nothing thematically of note other than some theme heard in fragments here and there...but the score itself is a real letdown. There's also a point in the movie that just SCREAMS for a reprise of DUEL OF THE FATES -- but we don't get it. We do get reprisals of other themes here and there...and a sadly very underwhelming (almost clumsy) full reprise of the STAR WARS theme itself near the end...but unless this score somehow works on the album, it really doesn't do anything for the film at all. Even at the end, it falls flat.
Overall Verdict:
*When THE FORCE AWAKENS opened in 2015 I was moved hearing Williams' music and seeing STAR WARS on-screen again -- but after 5 Disney-produced movies in 4 years, that thrill is gone. By the end of EPISODE IX -- even if it's a mild improvement on THE LAST JEDI -- I was ready for it to end, and unmoved by corporate moviemaking that, ultimately, has nothing new to add in a series that, initially, had quite a bit to say. Regardless of what you think about George Lucas, there was a point to both of his Star Wars trilogies, and a message that these Disney films don't seem, ultimately, to understand. His artistic impulse seems to have been left in a cinematic realm far, far away.
6.5/10
Add to that an excruciating audience experience (some idiot letting his three or four-year-old kid wander around the theater playing hide & seek and constantly calling out, "Wheh AW yoo...?" for two+ hours, and yelling back at the several people who rightfully complained and asked him to leave, "You gonna make me...?!" 
Not to mention the guy sitting right next to me and obviously live-Tweeting his thoughts for the ENTIRE FILM, his face buried in his phone for minutes at a stretch), and I came out of my matinee screening irritated and utterly deflated. 
I'll see it again just because my brother will want to see it with me (and hopefully with a more respectful audience), but I can't think of a more disappointing "grand finale" to a cinematic sage.
