Part 1/3: https://www.reddit.com/saltierthancrait/comments/a7tzug/critics_criticisms_part_i_humo
Part 2/3: https://www.reddit.com/saltierthancrait/comments/a91mnv/critics_criticisms_part_ii_canto_bight/
Part 3/3: https://www.reddit.com/saltierthancrait/comments/aahmu6/critics_criticisms_part_iii_length/

Part 1/3

Critic's Criticisms Part I: Humor

A few months ago I completed a read through of all ~400 TLJ reviews on RT(now up to ~415). It was painfully boring at times, but that's salt mining for you. I wanted to get a handle on the critical reception which is commonly cited as universal praise. While it's generally true that critics loved TLJ, they also had some criticisms that would be right at home here at STC, and these come from super experienced and intellectual film critics, so they have to be valid, right? After all, these people know so much more about film than a layperson. They can fully evaluate a film on countless criteria that average fans don't comprehend. /s, but you see where I'm going here: many TLJ fans have put critics on a pedestal, as if their opinion is somehow more valuable as a baseline for TLJ's quality. So what about when critics are echoing our own criticisms of TLJ?
Almost every criticism we have lobbed at this movie was shared by at least a few critics, but there were three main criticisms that stood out as the most common. I'll start this series with humor in TLJ.
Peter Debruge, Variety -Fresh

Luke is funnier than we’ve ever seen him — a personality change that betrays how “Star Wars” has been influenced by industry trends. Though the series has always been self-aware enough to crack jokes, it now gives in to the same winking self-parody that is poisoning other franchises of late, from the Marvel movies to “Pirates of the Caribbean.” But it begs the question: If movies can’t take themselves seriously, why should audiences?
Harrison Ford was a good enough actor, and Han Solo an aloof enough character, that he could get away with it, but here, the laughs feel forced — as does the appearance of cuddly critters on each new planet.

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter -Fresh

General Hux, who's goofily played by Domhnall Gleeson as if he were acting in a Monty Pythonesque parody

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger -Fresh

humor is not only prevalent but often turned, mockingly, on the self-serious mythology of the whole saga. Sometimes there are too many jokes; certainly there's an overabundance of cutesy aliens.

Niall Browne, Movies in Focus -Fresh

It’s Finn’s mission which takes the film off on a diversion where it didn’t really need to go. There’s a lot of comedic hijinks involved in all of this which George Lucas would have excised from the first draft of anything he ever wrote.
There’s more humour in The Last Jedi than previous Star Wars movies; some of it hits, some of it doesn’t. The much publicised Porgs work for a moment or two, but they outstay their welcome. The film drew to a halt too many times to show-odd cute creatures. I didn’t care for the crystal wolves during the climatic battle and the aforementioned space Llamas feel like they belong in a Disney movie (wait, this is a Disney movie!)

Rendy Jones, Rendy Reviews -Fresh

"The Last Jedi" is a movie that follows elements of other Star Wars movies that works on its own but feels so similar to a Marvel film because the first half of this movie is a comedy. Seriously a lot of the first half of the movie has a silly vibe amongst all the death and destruction that surrounds it. It desperately tries to be a parody of itself by making serious situations comedic.

Ruben Rosario, MiamiArtZine -Fresh

Much has also been made of “Jedi's” jarring tonal shifts. Johnson inserts broad humor, then abruptly makes things serious, then back again to goofy content.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Festival Today -Fresh

[Kylo's] partner in evil, Domnhall Gleeson, as General Hux, is less fine, though much of the problem stems not so much from the actor as from the tonally strange, abusively co-dependent relationship between the two men; their jokey rapport feels like it belongs in a very different movie.

Alex Doenau, Trespass -Fresh

However, from the beginning there’s a discordant sense of humour that’s somewhat counter to the series’ ethos to date: rather than funny situations rising organically in the script, many of the characters openly seem to be making jokes. It’s how we introduce Poe this go-round, and it feels slightly off.

Owen Richards, The Arts Desk -Fresh

There’s a surprising amount of comedy in the film, quite a bit at the expense of beloved characters or series law; it’s funny, but not respectful.

Tim Brayton , Alternate Ending -Rotten

The Last Jedi has an impressively poor batting average for its jokes: it opens with a vengefully dumb "I have a bad phone connection" bit that put me on the movie's bad side basically as soon as it had a side to be on, and it's not exactly all uphill from there.

James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk -Fresh

Sometimes, however, his proclivities come at the film’s expense, such as his penchant for inserting quippy humor, sarcasm, and sight gags at odd times, which often undercuts the drama or simply smacks of too much effort.

Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight -Fresh

Weak points come with awkward humour that lacks comedic rhythm and an unnecessary casino escapade, where a disposable underworld character DJ (Benicio del Toro) is introduced, that subsequently soft lens into what is essentially a children's adventure tale about animals.

Rob Dean, Bullz-Eye.com -Fresh

Further pushing the disconnect is that the script is far too self-aware, constantly making the sort of jokes that nerds have been making about “Star Wars” for decades, as if it’s too cool to purely accept itself on its own merits. The comedy works about half the time, but there are a ton of jokes in this film that underscore all of the overly serious talk of hope that populates the movie.

Sonny Bunch, Washington Free Beacon - Rotten

Johnson tries too hard on the humor front. Just one, brief, example: The whole opening sequences involves Poe doing conference call shtick while trolling Admiral Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). It's weirdly un-Star-Wars in the sense that it feels like something you could see on any dreadful sitcom here on planet Earth; this sequence is more fit for The Big Bang Theory than a supposedly dark entry in the Star Wars canon. The Star Wars movies have always been funny, of course, and there are moments when Johnson makes it work in a Star-Wars-sort-of-way. On the whole, though, it feels desperate and forced.

Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru - Rotten

Johnson's screenplay awkwardly blend action and drama with comedy and little bit of tacked-on romance. One particular scene involving an image that's not what it initially appears to be comes out of nowhere and feels like it belongs in a parody of Star Wars even though it does generate laughter.

Tom Glasson, Concrete Playground -Fresh

With more gags, one-liners and quirky moments than all the other Star Wars films combined, The Last Jedi introduces a levity to the staid franchise in the vein of Roger Moore's turn as post-Connery Bond. At times it works, even to the point of guffaws, but ultimately the humour feels misplaced. In a story where loss abounds and crushing defeat looms large at every turn, the repeated cutaways to doe-eyed porgs purring like extras from a Pixar film distract more than they entertain. So, too, does Domhnall Gleeson, whose character General Hux plays more like a parody of a Star Wars villain. As a result, both the New Order and the film itself are robbed of their most enduring menace: the Empire.

Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com -Fresh

In “The Last Jedi,” we watch Poe poke at Hux, who’s been turned into a buffoon for the new film, teasing him by faking communication issues and sharing an opinion about his mother. It’s the first of many awkward attempts at humor from Johnson, who isn’t known for funny business

Kevin McCarthy, WTTG-TV -Fresh

The first act of the film features major pacing issues combined with unnecessary comedic moments that ultimately hurt the tone of the film. Unfortunately, a lot of this comes from Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker character.

Jonathan W. Hickman, Daily Film Fix -Fresh

I found myself frustrated that the tone was comedy and sometimes almost veered into parody.
Everything else is jokes and comedic references with a side of cheese. I found myself shaking my head more than laughing along.

Ray Greene, CineGods.com - Rotten

But it also doesn’t feel quite right — the language, the iconography, the weirdly campy humor at the beginning — it doesn’t feel a part of the Star Wars universe.

Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly -Fresh

The less said about the awkward attempts at comic relief, the better.

Matt Looker, TheShiznit.co.uk -Fresh

the comedy - and there is plenty of it - is spread out more evenly across the whole cast. In the case of Domhnall Gleeson's Hux, this becomes a good opportunity to poke fun at the horribly hammy performance he gave in The Force Awakens. But when he is playing those laughs off against his only foil - Kylo Ren - Johnson threatens to undermine their status as epic villains.

Christian Toto, HollywoodInToto.com - Rotten

Johnson drops plenty of cutesy comic moments into the mix, some of which would make even George Lucas blush. What was passable in 1977 no longer flies as easily today. And a franchise as esteemed as this one deserves richer comic relief.

Mark Hughes, Forbes -Fresh

The first act's humor is the shakiest, with some gags seeming more like something out of a Star Wars satire. The tone and irreverence of it was out of place, and a couple of bits went on one or two beats too long.

Scott Menzel, We Live Entertainment -Fresh

Speaking of laughs, the jokes and humor just fall flat. The jokes seemed out of place or were just so “on the nose” that I couldn’t help but be annoyed by them. I feel like the modern day humor didn’t feel the tone of the story and yet Johnson kept trying to lighten the mood by adding in cheesy jokes that weren’t even remotely amusing but instead were rather cringe-worthy.

Kevin Jagernauth The Playlist -Fresh

In the pursuit of providing some buoyancy to the picture, Johnson wields comedy like a sword, but it’s unfortunately the weakest element of the film. “Star Wars” has always been home to plenty of cornball one liners, and comedic passages, but there’s a delicacy to how they’re employed and delivered that allows them to land….or simply fall flat. Far too often, it’s the latter outcome in this picture, with some of the laughs feeling underwritten or simply shoehorned in. There’s a distinct lack of cleverness to the wit employed here — think something as seemingly spontaneous as BB-8’s “thumbs up” in ‘The Force Awakens’ — and while the gags don’t grind the picture to a halt, there are certainly some awkward patches where the expected laughs don’t materialize.

Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects -Fresh

The film is a series of points both high and low, and it’s nowhere more clear than in the humor. Several beats work well to bring a smile, but others fall tone deaf to the carnage and pain surrounding them. From the very beginning Hux’s scenes are made to feel like lost reels from Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, and poor Boyega can’t catch a break as Finn is saddled with lame one-liners at every turn.

Alex Godfrey, GQ Magazine [UK] -Fresh

It’s funny, though not always when you want it to be – perhaps fearing too much gravitas, Johnson undermines it a little too often.

Robert Kojder, Flickering Myth -Fresh

Rian Johnson has crafted an installment that largely defies saga standard narrative structure and tone. There is a quick comedic dialogue exchange in the beginning between Oscar Isaac’s fighter pilot Poe Dameron and Domhnall Gleeson’s First Order General Hux that falls in line with the brand of humor Disney and Marvel inject into that particular cinematic universe.

John Serba, MLive.com -Fresh

Some stabs at comedy feel overwrought and clunky, including a stint on a ritzy planet of war profiteers, an extended sequence of skillfully directed silliness destined to be beloved fodder for apologists only.

Up next is Part II: Canto Bight.
​

Part 2/3

Critic's Criticisms Part II: Canto Bight

This is the continuation of my series highlighting specific critic's criticisms of TLJ. Part I on Humor is here, which also details my reasoning for this mining operation. Here we are covering Canto Bight, and we have everything from run of the mill iodized stuff to hail-sized rock salt on display, so adjust your goggles accordingly.

Johnson overplays his hand occasionally — most notably an unnecessary sequence at the casino city of Canto Bight that goes straight from a political sermon into a plot hole

Ethan Sacks, New York Daily News - Fresh

The bad news is, this involves an unnecessary trip to a kind of casino planet that doesn’t really advance the story.

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic - Fresh

A scene in an opulent casino is easily the most painful yet in this new generation of Star Wars flicks, eliciting images of the green screen busy set pieces of the early-2000 franchise additions, enticing to the youngest members of the audience who need their stories overly padded with shiny spectacle.

Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot - Fresh

Boyega is a loveable hero, and his new compadre Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) is a nice addition. However, as much as it isn’t overbearing, their entire sub-plot is when the adventure loses steam. This moves the film away from where all the interest is – Luke. At this point, it becomes a little disjointed and unnecessary, never reaching a point of excitement required for a chunk of plot of this degree.

Cameron Frew, FrewFilm - Fresh

an extended digression with Finn and Rose that doesn’t end up counting for much plotwise

Bob Chipman, Moviebob Central - Fresh

Sadly, Boyega's Finn -- still an appealing character -- is saddled with a go-nowhere plot-line that has him and Resistance mechanic Rose show up at a space casino and cross paths with a rogue with a heart of a gold (or maybe just rogue?) played by Benicio Del Toro. There's the kernel of interesting idea there as we glimpse the socioeconomic underpinnings of this galaxy far, far away in a way we've never seen before, but it's a digression whose payoff doesn't warrant the build-up. And when you're already the longest Star Wars ever made (two and a half hours!), some snipping here and there might not have been a bad idea.

Zaki Hasan, Zaki's Corner - Fresh

I’m not a big fan of Finn and Rose’s side adventure, which has the air of a spinoff story being tacked onto the main narrative (probably to give Finn a purpose, since Rey is doing her own thing with Luke). Apart from showcasing the power of hope on a younger generation, it’s not as well integrated into the seams of the larger story as it could’ve been.

Tomas Trussow, The Lonely Film Critic - Fresh

It’s Finn’s mission which takes the film off on a diversion where it didn’t really need to go. There’s a lot of comedic hijinks involved in all of this which George Lucas would have excised from the first draft of anything he ever wrote.

Niall Browne, Movies in Focus - Fresh

Much of the Canto Bight sequence feels unnecessary

Molly Templeton, Eugene Weekly - Fresh

First, both prominent new characters Rose and DJ seemed shoe-horned in, and Rose especially doesn't seem to have a real place in this film nor does she add anything to be hopeful about in the future. And while both Rey and Poe fans will probably be pleased with where their characters go, Finn sort of takes a step back, as he is sent off on a side adventure that seems like second-tier Star Wars. It's a diversion that takes up a good portion of the film and really serves no purpose to the overall story...worse yet, it seems to contain some heavy-handed political messages not commonly found, at least not this blatantly, in the Star Wars universe. These are more than just quibbles too: Most fans will not be used to the slow, lumbering pace or the general unevenness of this film...especially coming on the heels of the action-packed pacing that JJ Abrams brought in Episode VII.

Tom Santilli, AXS.com - Fresh

There’s some stuff that feels extraneous (the whole Canto Bight sequence, which seems to exist to set up a new Lando-like character played by Benicio del Toro), and the cycle of attack and retreat — mostly retreat — gets a bit monotonous.

Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com - Fresh

Muchas de las situaciones se sienten forzadas e innecesarias (por ejemplo, la aventura de Finn y Rose, me parece innecesaria).

Ruben Peralta Rigaud, Cocalecas - Fresh

Their jaunt to the casino planet of Canto Bight serves little purpose besides introducing Del Toro, updating the cantina scene, and offering up a tired CGI chase scene that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Attack of the Clones. Kudos (maybe) to Johnson for introducing income inequality to the Star Wars universe, but the entire sequence feels rushed and shoehorned into an already long movie.

Pete Vonder Haar Houston Press - Fresh

The weakest of these is Finn's. It's briskly paced and full of action yes, but let's just say a casino is no cantina... Worse, it also sees him interacting with Prequel Trilogy levels of CGI critters.

Karl Puschmann, New Zealand Herald - Fresh

But the worst distraction “The Last Jedi” has to offer involves erstwhile Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) and a Resistance maintenance worker named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), a subplot every bit as visually and narratively inept as Lucas’ prequels were taken as.

J. Olson, Cinemixtape - Rotten

Finn’s entire storyline could be cut and the film would be better off. As Finn was one of the driving-force leads of The Force Awakens and also a charming character, this is a disappointing development. His adventure is such a low point that it would not seem out of place in one of George Lucas’ efforts from between 1999 and 2005, and it serves little purpose to the film’s overall plot.

Alex Doenau, Trespass - Fresh

there’s too much going on in The Last Jedi, and a lot of it feels like filler. Besides the aforementioned, stalled-out space battle, there’s a clunky sequence in a casino that goes on far too long, a lot of distracting cameos, and new characters inhabited by Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro, who bring close to nothing to the proceedings.

Bob Grimm, Reno News and Review - Fresh

Finn and Rose (a new addition to the principal cast) distract the audience with an overlong and ultimately unnecessary side plot.

Richard Dove, International Business Times - Rotten

And this plotline feeds right into the absolutely unforgivably terrible subplot, which is the adventures of Finn (John Boyega) the cowardly ex-storm trooper, and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the class-conscious engineer, who go on a fetch quest that is every bit as pointless as the whole matter of the military nonsense, only even worse, because it hinges on terrible comedy, bad CGI, and a spectacularly horrible moment when Johnson stops the film in its tracks to provide a ruthlessly on-the-nose lesson about economic inequality and the military-industrial complex.

Tim Brayton, Alternate Ending - Rotten

Some of what happens on the casino planet — called Canto Bight, and sure to figure in the next film — is goofy on a level as cringe-inducing as things we saw in the prequel trilogy; like, Jar-Jar Binks–awful.

MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher - Fresh

Johnson does his best to hustle from one location to the next, but the narrative has a tendency from time to time to drag. The biggest example of this are the scenes on Canto Bight. Which is a shame, because a huge chunk of the film’s message is established on these scenes. But the very nature of the story, with its many moving parts, inadvertently makes this section of the film feel like a diversion.

Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm - Fresh

The humour is kind of sour in other places, too, such as the silly neo-cantina scene as Finn and Rose track the whereabouts of a mysterious encrypter, who might be the rebellion’s last hope, into a sort of galactic Monte Carlo. The abundance of slapstick there and in other parts of the film doesn’t click and feels forced.

Diva Velez, TheDivaReview.com - Fresh

In an unnecessary and quite frankly preposterous third subplot, Finn (John Boyega) and a new character, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), race against the clock to locate an underworld figure who can help them neutralise the First Order’s tracking device, thus allowing the diminished rebel fleet to escape.

Vicky Roach, Daily Telegraph (Australia) - Rotten

Weak points come with awkward humour that lacks comedic rhythm and an unnecessary casino escapade, where a disposable underworld character DJ (Benicio del Toro) is introduced, that subsequently soft lens into what is essentially a children's adventure tale about animals

Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight - Fresh

Unfortunately, we keep getting dragged away from the only emotionally resonant portion of the film to watch Finn and Rose engage in sub-prequel hijinks on the casino planet. Everything here is forced and awful, visually uninteresting and often dark to the point of unwatchability, lousy with mawkish little kids making bug eyes at the camera as we marvel at the horror of economic inequality, and drowned in an atrocious patina of truly terrible CGI. It calls to mind the droid factory in Attack of the Clones and the pre-podrace sequence in The Phantom Menace. Most offensively, the whole Finn/Rose diversion has absolutely no importance to the forward momentum of the plot—it's utterly irrelevant, even nonsensical.

Sonny Bunch, Washington Free Beacon - Rotten

Not everything in the film works: a few of the goofier comic moments fail to land and true to the legacy of Lucas there’s a fair amount of eye-wincing dialogue. More importantly, the second act bows under the weight of too many narrative strands; Finn’s away mission comes off as a bit superfluous, as does Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Holdo, and both Rose and the beloved Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) are sadly underwritten. In a trade-off that brings scope and complexity, Johnson has sacrificed narrative efficiency.

Christopher Machell, CineVue - Fresh

I didn't like the sequence in a casino--a callback to the Star Wars Cantina, of course, but also a chance to discuss the evils of war profiteers and the 1%. There are creatures there, there's slapstick, there's a heist of sorts, and it all harks back to my favourite of Johnson's films, The Brothers Bloom, in the interplay between the characters, in the lightness and clarity of the scheme. But it's tonally disruptive, and it introduces a trio of children who seem like part of a different film.

Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central - Fresh

Finn and Rose’s trip to a gambling planet – basically a space Monaco – flits between light fun and on-the-nose political narrative.

Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle - Fresh

It also begs the question why the space casino sequence, arguably the least relevant to the core story, wasn’t dramatically trimmed back. Aside from a throwaway final shot, this section of the film is the weakest – designed to depict profiteering space-capitalism run rampant (ironically, also depicting a stable of space-horses also running rampant).

Patrick Kolan, Shotgun Cinema - Fresh

But as ingenious as this setup may be, it also gives rise to the film's most pointless subplot. After waking from his coma, Finn (John Boyega) contrives a means by which he can disable the New Order's tracking device, albeit one that requires him to sneak off the fleeing vessel, travel to a Monaco-styled casino planet, track down a master codebreaker and infiltrate the enemy's warship undetected. This enormous MacGuffin sees Boyega partnered with the charming Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, a Resistance engineer low in status but high in pluck. The problem is that their side adventure does absolutely nothing to advance the actual story.

Tom Glasson, Concrete Playground - Fresh

Unfortunately, John Boyega’s Finn, Oscar Isaac’s Poe and Kelly Marie Tran—as Finn’s new partner-in-rebellion Rose—are given the equivalent of busywork while the rest of the cast moves the plot along.

Simon Miraudo, Student Edge - Fresh

A detour to a casino planet where Finn and a resistance mechanic named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) search for a codebreaker to help them disrupt the First Order's tracking of the retreating resistance ships feels like a trip into another movie. The stakes here seem far lower than the live-or-die scenario facing Poe, General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher) and the others trying to make their getaway.

Greg Maki Star-Democrat (Easton, MD) Fresh

The only characters not doing a huge amount of growing are Finn (John Boyega) and mechanic Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), and not for nothing, their subplot opens up a momentum drain that is the only weakness in The Last Jedi. Boyega and Tran are perfectly enjoyable, and their subplot isn’t a complete waste of time, but you start to feel the length of The Last Jedi when it veers off with them, and Finn’s arc is a pale echo of Poe’s so it’s not like much is being accomplished.

Sarah Marrs Lainey Gossip Fresh

Rey’s journey toward learning the ways of the Jedi is far more entertaining than Finn’s convoluted (and ultimately pointless) storyline

Josh Bell Las Vegas Weekly Fresh

Rose’s character is front and center in the film’s weakest sequences. We’re diverted to a city where the worst of the worst frolic. No, not the usual hives of scum and villainy. It’s a casino where the very, very rich cavort. The evil One Percenters! If you’re not immediately yanked out of the story here you deserve a prize. The accompanying dialogue is equally clunky, as is the reason all these vapid souls gained their fortunes.

Christian Toto, HollywoodInToto.com - Rotten

Far less successful is the time spent with the rebels on the run from Hux and the First Order. Not only is it centered on the slowest space chase in sci-fi history, but subplots featuring Poe, Finn (John Boyega), and Rose (newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) go absolutely nowhere. Sure we get introduced to DJ (Benicio Del Toro) and Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), but it’s with actions that fail to connect either through sheer stupidity or the simple truth that their absence wouldn’t change the story in the slightest. They’re obvious filler, and as is the Disney way (witness their Marvel films) the studio’s never met a character that couldn’t be jammed into a movie for no reason other than the misguided belief that more is better. Finn and Rose’s adventure in particular offers some additional action beats and a visit to a casino — think the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars, but for the 1% — but it is meaningless noise.

Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects - Fresh

Meanwhile, what feels too much like the “B plot” side adventure has Finn and Rose on a mission that takes them into another film entirely, a sort of intergalactic James Bond-meets-Free Willy. It’s hard not to feel that their entire subplot could be axed in order to make The Last Jedi stronger and tighter, which is unfortunate.

Kaila Hale-Stern, The Mary Sue - Fresh

There is a whole section that feels out of kilter and harks back to the CGI naffness of the prequels — and is also virtually pointless to the plot.

Jamie East, The Sun (UK) - Fresh

The film’s epic 150-minute runtime allows plenty of room for Johnson’s inventiveness, but there’s also a tiny bit of fat in the middle of the movie, specifically in the Canto Bight scenes with Finn and Rose. The casino city itself is gorgeous and has some crazy-cool characters, plus Finn and Rose’s presence there shines a light on some new, worthwhile themes for the Star Wars franchise. However, in terms of the overall story, the whole escapade feels a little pointless and small. It doesn’t help that Benicio del Toro’s new character, DJ, who is part of the same storyline, is largely insignificant.

Germain Lussier, io9.com - Fresh

Star Wars: The Last Jedi does have a clear weak spot -- specifically the side plot that develops between Finn (John Boyega) and newly-introduced Resistance member Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Following a genuinely funny meet-up between the two characters, they are given their own special mission searching for a codebreaker who can assist in the battle against the First Order. But this storyline never feels particularly inspired or impactful as everything else going down in the movie. While it is constructed to fit with the larger themes of the film, features its own interesting expectation-flipping turns, and does eventually have a key impact on the macro scale, it's also the only part of the feature that ever feels expendable, and not helping anything is that it features the weakest visual effects of the blockbuster (especially during a second-act chase sequence).

Eric Eisenberg, CinemaBlend - Fresh

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.

Ian Freer, Empire Magazine - Fresh

It’s a shame, then, that the righteousness of Finn and Rose’s place in the film is undermined slightly by the limpness of their mission. Perhaps feeling there had to be some kind of Mos Eisley–esque sequence in the film, Johnson sends the pair to a casino city full of all kinds of creatures. It’s fun, sure, but the whole operation ultimately turns out to be a red herring. At least there’s some nice musing on liberation during this stretch, reminding us of the real stakes of this long story—freedom is, after all, what the Empire denies and the Rebel Alliance promises. And in a gorgeous third-act sequence—which includes the film’s true Empire Strikes Back homage—Finn and Rose finally get the emboldened moments they deserve. I just wish they fit more integrally into the central thesis of the film, that they were just as special, in their way, as Rey is, glinting with messianic power as she ascends.

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair - Fresh

Of the three simultaneous plots, it’s Finn’s that sometimes drags down the energy, particularly with an introduction of a shady thief played by Benicio del Toro, the only new addition to the cast that doesn’t quite work; he seems to be acting in his own private movie, and it’s not as good as this one.

Will Leitch Paste Magazine - Fresh

Where the film struggles the most is on Canto Bight. Taken on her own, Rose isn’t a bad addition to the Star Wars mythos, and the movie definitely needs someone to play against Finn. Unfortunately, they lack the electric chemistry we saw between Finn and Rey in The Force Awakens, and their secret mission in a casino feels like it should be far more entertaining than it actually is.

Matt Goldberg, Collider - Fresh

Some action sequences are superfluous and unengaging. Benicio del Toro all but cameos as a sort of hobo hustler, while John Boyega’s Finn is sidelined, relegated to relatively inconsequential hi-jinx.

Alex Godfrey, GQ Magazine [UK] - Fresh

Finn (John Boyega) and newcomer Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) attempt an espionage mission that takes them to what is the Star Wars equivalent of the French Riviera. It’s a casino city named Canto Bight, and their adventures here push the Rick’s Café sensibilities from the original Star Wars’ cantina sequence to their limit. Nevertheless, this entire subplot amounts to a whole lot of padding while the real tough and revelatory decisions are made on Ahch-To.

David Crow, Den of Geek - Fresh

Plot-wise, I felt the entire side story at the casino world of Canto Bight was unnecessary. If you cut the entire sequence out of the film, it would have little impact on the core narrative.

Scott Chitwood ComingSoon.net - Fresh

Finn (John Boyega) wakes up, meets a admiring fan down in maintenance named Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and they head off on their own adventure, a detour that somehow combines the louche slickness of Cloud City and moralizing at its most Disney.

Joe Gross, Austin American-Statesman - Fresh

But The Last Jedi’s two-and-half-hour sprawl still includes an awful lot of clunky, derivative, and largely unnecessary incidents to wade through in order to get to its maverick last act. This is especially true when it comes to the plausibility-straining mission of stormtrooper turned Rebel Alliance fighter Finn (John Boyega) and puckish series newcomer Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran).

Sam C. Mac, Slant Magazine - Rotten

There are a couple of big names that fail to deliver much aside from, perhaps, realizing their childhood dreams of being in a “Star Wars” movie. A trip to a city that might as well be called Space Macau also fails to pay many dividends.

Christopher Lawrence, Las Vegas Review-Journal - Fresh

Case in point is the plot involving Finn (John Boyega) and new hero Rose's (Kelly Marie Tran) McGuffinesque mission to Canto Bight, which is of the ashtray-on-a-speederbike variety, and takes away from the tension cranked up elsewhere.

Harry Guerin, RTÉ (Ireland) - Fresh

The remaining 20% is made up of two different locales, one of which is entirely superfluous to the story. Essentially, there is a subplot that introduces Benicio del Toro’s mysterious work of eccentricity, except it doesn’t really do much of interest with him. Admittedly, it feels as if the character could be destined for bigger things in the final chapter, but I can only go off of what I watched, and well, the middle portion of The Last Jedi is stuck in the furthest setting from lightspeed. The journey expands to a space-Vegas full of various alien life forms and inhabitants, but it’s not as visually striking as previously explored planets. Additionally, by design, there seems to be filler injected simply because the other characters need things to do while Rey accomplishes what she needs to with Luke.

Robert Kojder, Flickering Myth - Fresh

The scenes on Canto Bight seemed like an unnecessary divert for Rose (a new character I actually really like) and Finn. This “casino planet” was like a scene right out of a low-budget Sy-Fy channel movie shot in Vancouver. It felt too familiar and earthbound to be a scene in an other-worldly scene in a Star Wars movie. The Rose/Finn alien horse race through the casino that ruined the galactic one-percenters good time and did some property damage was just ridiculous and should have been cut. Rose and Finn flopping around on the alien horse just looked like a bad theme park ride.

Chris Gore, Film Threat - Fresh

There’s a lengthy diversion to the casino planet of Canto Bight that feels pointless and tacked on just for the sake of giving us a cool new corner of the galaxy to feast our eyes on.

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly - Fresh
And that's it for Part II. Happy Holidays to all my fellow fans and miners! Next week I will conclude with Part III, which will cover- well, let's just say it's the longest of this series by far. Heh.

I posted some pics the other day of my 2013 trip to the Monaco GP. Someone mentioned they were interested in some practical tips for the race as they planned to tick it off their bucket list. Here are some that I wrote up a few years back.
How much will it cost me?
So, it’s not a cheap exercise – but it doesn’t have to bankrupt you unless you want it to.
Tickets are expensive (more on that later), however the rest of it really isn't too bad. You can dial it up & down as much as you want. I'll base this on the assumption that the person reading it is a normal human being, and won't be requiring helicopter transfers from Nice airport to The Fairmont Hotel. Some indicative costs below:
2/3 star hotel with sea views (staying within 15 mins train of Monaco): <€150/night 5cl beer at the track (which you can drink in the stands): €5 Ham sandwich/kebab at the track: €4 Train from Nice: €5 Two course lunch & some drinks at a half-decent restaurant in Monaco: €35pp Team hat/shirt: €30-40
Sweet. Where do I sit? Well, you need to buy grandstand tickets - there is no such thing as general admission & you cannot see the track from anywhere in Monaco except the grandstands (or secteur rocher - I'll get to that) - there's hoarding everywhere to block views.
Widely regarded as the "best" views are Stand K1 "high". This is the first stand at Tabac corner on the harbour, seated at the back of the stand (high up). It has views of Nouvelle Chicane, the run into Tabac, Tabac corner, and the entry into Swimming Pool. If you’re in the back row, you can also stand up & peer over the edge onto the main straight. The only downside is you are not quite so close to the cars. I did K1 "low" in the very front row, and while you don't quite get the panoramic views that the upper seats get, you are literally 2m from the cars as they go past at 160km/h. And if Max Chilton punts Pastor Maldonado into the wall in front of you, you get a face full of dust & a carbon fibre winglet off a Williams F1 car to keep
Anywhere in Stand K is brilliant as you have the widest views of the track, a screen, and you're right across from the boats which is a pretty iconic Monaco GP view.
Also great was Stand B - Casino Square. You are sitting directly opposite Casino Monte Carlo, again with a screen right in front of you. The cars are not as quick through here, but regardless of how many times you've seen the race on TV, it is a bizarre sight to see F1 cars going through what is usually a busy carpark. The sound here (IMO) was much louder & better too - must have been all the echoing off buildings etc.
The best way is to jump on YouTube and look for views from various stands - you'll get a good idea pretty quickly (in French the word for grandstand is ‘tribune’ – so search “Monaco grand prix tribune k” for example). I would definitely recommend stand K & B (in that order) - maybe do a mix i.e. stand B on Saturday, Stand K on Sunday. I’m sure the other stands are fine, however I have no experience with them so can’t say.
Note: when you buy Saturday & Sunday tickets, you get tickets for Thursday Free Practice included for no cost.
Budget up to €700pp for tickets if doing a full weekend.
Book directly through the Automobile Club Monaco website (www.acm.mc) - it is a horrible website, the ticketing UX sucks balls, and it only seems to work on Internet Explorer but persevere. They will send your tickets via registered post to your address & mine came in about Jan/Feb (ahead of the May race).
Hmm....not sure I can justify spending $1k pp on tickets.
No problem, there is another option. Secteur Rocher is a rocky hill near La Rascasse, and you can buy tickets to that for about €70 I think. There is no allocated seating so it's first in best dressed (meaning you'll need to get there early), however it has great (albeit a bit distant) views of the track and excellent views of the pits.
How do I get around while I’m there?
To get to Monaco, take the train. It costs €5 each way, trains leave every 15mins or so, and it only takes 10-15mins. The last train leaves Monaco at around 11.30pm.
It’s then only a short (but steep) walk from the train station to the grandstands, and everything’s clearly signed. The little ticket machines at the station are super easy to use too.
The roads are pretty diabolical on this weekend (the Cannes Film Festival is usually on around the same time 30mins up the road so you have all these people there at once) so buses are out, and a cab between Nice & Monaco apparently costs €250 each way on race weekend. If you have a bigger budget, helicopter transfers are easy to come across & aren’t as expensive as you might think (probably comparable to a cab).
Once you’re in Monaco, just walk everywhere. It’s tiny. The great thing is you can watch quali in the stands, then walk a few hundred metres to a myriad of half-decent (and sensibly priced) restaurants to have lunch/drinks while you wait for the next session to start.
Where do I stay?
If you have the budget, stay in Monaco if you can. While getting around is super easy, it would have been easier to just wander back to the room at the end of each day. I wouldn’t pay €500 a night or anything, but if you can get something for, say €200-250 I’d do it. That might be a bit optimistic though.
Otherwise, the obvious answer is Nice, but to be honest I (personally) would prefer to stay in a smaller town. I stayed in Villefranche-sur-Mer, but you could try Eze, Cap Ferrat or Bealieu-sur-Mer. They’re just a bit quieteprettier than Nice. Villefrance was nice & relaxed – plenty of places to eat & drink but no hustle & bussle. It was good to leave hectic/noisy Monaco behind at the end of each day and just chill in a nice quiet little town. Pretty much just look at the map & pick a town that looks nice. As mentioned, landing a sea-view room during GP weekend for under €150 is achievable (in any of the towns a few minutes outside Monte Carlo).
What else is there to do there?
Shitloads. The track opens to the public after each session (around 6pm) and then opens to traffic at 7pm. The restaurant La Rascasse turns into this massive party that spills out on to the road/track…DJs, drinks, the whole box & dice. Hundreds & hundreds of people there.
All the restaurants and bars are packed & have plenty on. There’s stuff going on in the street (merchandise, Lotus had a stand where you could drive their sim, live music in the street), beers everywhere. Lots to see.
You can go up to Casino Square, which can only be described as a circus on Saturday night. I’m not kidding, it is wall to wall rich kids posing in supercars. You are standing there watching a 20yr old kid rolling past the casino in an orange Aventador (on Kuwaiti plates…meaning he has shipped it over from Kuwait for the weekend), just wondering to yourself “who are these people?!” Young girls driving McLarens, Veyrons, SLRs, an Aston One77, Ferraris, you name it. You know the most recent Batmobile? That was there. As was a RR Phantom painted in camo green. It’s mental.
You can take a walk along the yachts & be surprised at how depressing the yacht parties look. It’s basically a bunch of rich dudes with Russian hookers all looking bored with each other, or some Poms who all bought tickets to the same VIP yacht package awkwardly trying to have a good time but failing.
You probably can’t go to any of the nice restaurants or bars. They are generally private events for special people only…I watched people getting turned away from Buddha Bar while playboys and socialites breezed in. Gotta be a part of the club. 
Is everyone there millionaires?
Nope. The crowd were mostly just genuine F1 fans from all over the world. LOTS of Aussies. My missus was a bit worried about what to wear thinking everyone was gonna be dressed up…nope.
All the billionaires are segregated in their viewing terraces or yachts.
You can generally tell who the special people are – they are always tanned, have perfect teeth. The men wear Hublot Big Bangs/AP Royal Oak Offshores, and the smoking hot women are dressed head to toe in Chanel. They are all a bunch of wankers to be honest, the whole “look at how rich I am” thing is amusing for about 10 minutes and then it becomes sad.
Monaco is a procession why would I want to go there herpa derpity derp it's the worst race on the calendar
Oh shut up, who cares. It’s an utterly brilliant spectacle & the atmosphere is amazing. You see the cars hammering around the track, and then when you’re walking the circuit 2hrs later & you cannot believe that they actually allow this race to happen. Like cigarettes or the IOMTT road race, if the Monaco Grand Prix was invented today you would be laughed out of the room for suggesting it. It is an absolutely absurd event that should be celebrated for existing in 2018.
Any other tips?
Yeah, after the race, head down to the paddock area near the pit entry/La Rascasse. They open it up to the public around 5.30/6pm. You will be able to walk into the paddock area. You’ll see drivers, team bosses, celebrities, media, etc. I said a quick hello to Michael Douglas, Christian Horner, Adrian Newey, Esteban Gutierrez, Sergio Perez. Saw DC, EJ, Brundle & co filming their post-race shows. And shook Mark Webber’s hand & congratulated him on his podium.
If you've ever said to yourself you'll go to the race "one day", you absolutely must do it.

Many days after bidding the penguins goodbye, Alex suggests to his friends and the lemurs that they should go to Monte Carlo to get the penguins and the chimpanzees and fly back to New York City, which they agree to do.
In Monte Carlo, the penguins and chimpanzees have been saving up their daily winnings from the casino to fly back to Africa and bring their friends home. Alex's interference to kidnap them leads to animal control, led by a vicious big-game hunter named Chantal DuBois, pursuing them around the city, with Alex and the gang barely escaping. With determination, DuBois vows to capture Alex and add his head to her collection of animals' heads she's captured.
In the skies of France, the plane crashes as the authorities close in. They come across a circus train consisting of Stefano, Gia, and Vitaly, and manage to gain entry, claiming that they are circus animals themselves. The team soon learn from Stefano that they are performing in Rome and London, where they plan to impress a promoter to get them on their first American tour. Before the zoo animals' claim is discredited, the penguins suddenly appear with a deal to purchase the circus themselves; however, the circus animals' show in Rome proves to be a failure.
In route to London, Stefano soon reveals to Alex that Vitaly was the biggest star of them all, but quit due to an accident in one of his stunts; therefore, the friends lost faith in the circus. At a stop in the Alps, Alex convinces the circus to continue pursuing the circus. Gia persuades Alex to teach her Trapeze Americano. In the process, they grow closer.
Meanwhile, DuBois is arrested in Rome while chasing the animals, but escapes and discovers that Alex was the missing lion from the zoo in New York. Once free, DuBois recruits her injured men and they head toward the Alps, forcing the animals to proceed to London despite incomplete rehearsals. Alex finds Vitaly preparing to leave and convinces him to stay by reminding him of how he enjoys performing the impossible. He suggests that he uses hair conditioner as a safer lubricant to perform his flaming ring jump as well as fix his damaged fur. As a result, Vitaly's stunt is performed perfectly and the show is a spectacular success. After the impressed promoter arranges for an American tour, DuBois shows up with a paper showing that Alex was missing. Though the penguins are able to foil Dubois' plan, Alex is forced to confess that the four of them are just zoo animals trying to get home, disappointing the others who feel used and lied to.
The zoo animals and circus go their separate ways, but arrive in New York City at the same time. Realizing how much their adventures have changed them, the zoo animals find that their true home was with the circus. Before they can go back, however, DuBois tranquilizes and captures them, before being discovered by the zoo staff, who believe she is responsible for returning the missing animals. Julien and the penguins manage to get to the circus and convince the circus animals to rescue their friends.
Back at the zoo, Alex awakens to find that he along with his friends are trapped in larger fence enclosures. DuBois, who was honored by the zoo guards, secretly loads a poison-filled dart into a gun that she hides inside a foam finger in preparation for publicly executing Alex. The circus animals arrive led by Skipper and are able to defeat DuBois and her henchmen. Alex and his friends decide to permanently join the circus to pursue their adventures. Meanwhile, DuBois and her henchmen are sent off in crates bound for Madagascar.