Forgot to post my review!
Has some fun moments, but not as good as it should have been. The pacing could sometimes drag and some attempts at comedy (especially early on) were too blatant and detracted from the atmosphere it was trying to create. With that said, there were a few nice character-building scenes and visuals in general.
The military side of it was exceptionally badly handled, it must be said and, while the Resistance characters get more fleshed out, the First Order ones seemed even more inept than ever (with the exception of Snoke, but he never manages to be as intriguing, sinister or charismatic as Palpatine was). If you thought it was odd Starkiller Base never bothered to get a fighter patrol up until shit was blowing up, you'll be cringing even more at a number of scenes here. The First Order just come across like little kids who have all the cool toys, but no f**king clue how to protect them, much less properly use them. There are spoken references to things such as "support ships", but the writer clearly had no idea how a fleet would actually, well, support itself... The 'Rebels' show has me enjoy Imperial characters like the Seventh Sister, Tarkin and Thrawn because they're relatively competent and force the main characters to out-think them. There isn't anyone like that in this and it suffers as a result. It's all about folks like Poe slamming an X-Wing around and mindlessly yelling, "WOOO!" When we see the supposed personification of the First Order's military genius, Kylo and Hux, spend most of their time childishly bickering, the lack of a focused Vader-like character feels obvious.
Yes, there are dramatic scenes. A few nice moments, but can't say there was much in them which left a memorable impression on me. There was one scene where a certain character is floating/gliding like an angel, which I think was meant to come across as hair-raising and magical, but it just looked silly to me. The better material is in Rey's continuing journey of learning about the nature of Force and all that.
Entertainment-wise, both 'Force Awakens' and, especially, 'Rogue One', were better and I honestly think children could get a bit bored in certain places. The pacing needed tightening up and there were sections which neither advanced the story at large or caused the relevant characters to meaningfully change their way of thinking, which rendered them pointless. Parts like that could easily have been removed and wouldn't have affected the film.
Still, it's fun enough for the festive season and taking friends along will probably make for a good time. Watch it as a time-killing adventure with some expensive effects. It's not as bad as the prequels, though nor does it out-class the rest.
