The Star Wars are over... but the Force is still strong: BRIAN VINER reviews Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker but it fails to live up to the best movies in the space-based franchise

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Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (12A)

Rating:

Were a bunch of aliens to land in Britain this week, they could be forgiven for assuming that a festival called Christmas celebrates a character called Luke Skywalker.

Or, to put it another way, a galaxy far, far away might be the only place to escape to if the Force isn’t with you and never was, and you simply don’t understand why anyone should be talking about the historic enmity between the Jedi and the Sith.

On the other hand, anyone who really cares about the parallel universe conceived more than 40 years ago by George Lucas (whose spiritual son and self-confessed Star Wars nerd JJ Abrams directs this film), today is the day of days, the long-awaited arrival of a cinematic event like no other, the release of the saga’s ninth and concluding instalment.

I attended a screening on Tuesday in the company of what felt like a thousand others who look at life mainly by the glow of a lightsaber. Daisy Ridley is pictured above as Rey

There will be more spin-offs, of course. Commercial juggernauts like this are never garaged for good. 

But Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker – which had its London premiere last night – ties up all the loose ends, while also delivering an ultimately satisfying if mildly incoherent story in its own right.

At times, though, it is less a film than a shameless festival of nostalgic auto-reverence.

Were a bunch of aliens to land in Britain this week, they could be forgiven for assuming that a festival called Christmas celebrates a character called Luke Skywalker

A galaxy far, far away might be the only place to escape to if the Force isn’t with you and never was, and you simply don’t understand why anyone should be talking about the historic enmity between the Jedi and the Sith 

I attended a screening on Tuesday in the company of what felt like a thousand others who look at life mainly by the glow of a lightsaber. 

There were sporadic cheers as they recognised arcane references to 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back or 2017’s The Last Jedi.

And hearty laughter at an outrageously self-satisfied prelude to the movie, in which a procession of famous stars all try to tease plot secrets out of Daisy Ridley (the British actress who plays Jedi knight Rey, for those who haven’t been paying attention).

At the heart of the narrative is the complicated and mysterious connection between Rey and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), enigmatic commander of the First Order, who, if he can find time to interrupt his satanic efforts to extend his sovereignty over the entire galaxy, might just be able to give her a clue about her forebears.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker – which had its London premiere last night – ties up all the loose ends, while also delivering an ultimately satisfying if mildly incoherent story in its own right

Driver is the best thing in this movie by a million light years, not just because he’s an acting powerhouse, but also because his character is so much more interesting than those of any of the goodies, such as Rey’s fellow Resistance fighters Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac).

No amount of comic banter between them can overcome what the saga has lost since its early days, when the heroic likes of Luke Skywalker himself (Mark Hamill) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) were just as compelling as anyone on the Dark Side.

Still, we also get a final dose of Rey’s mentor Leia Organa (a very clever reanimation of the late Carrie Fisher) and plenty of what Star Wars does best: Fantastic battle sequences and that irresistible immersion into another world.

It’s not the best of the Skywalker saga. It’s not even in my top three. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a very good film.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is out today.