REVIEW: After JJ Abrams’ Star Wars reboot, Rian Johnson drops the ball with The Last Jedi

REVIEW: The Star Wars franchise is way off beam thanks to clunky comedy, awkward action and some dodgy hocus pocus from Luke Skywalker

IN The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams’ reconditioned Millennium Falcon purrs like a Wookiee — after he’s picked the meat off a roasted Porg.

Having successfully steered the Star Wars reboot, set 30 years after the defeat of the Galactic Empire, to a $US2.06 billion worldwide box office gross, the fleet-footed filmmaker has handed over the keys to an action adventure P Plater.

Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) bangs the vintage vehicle up so badly, this reviewer would strenuously suggest the scrap heap were it not for the fact that Abrams has already signed on to direct Episode IX.

(To be fair, franchise creator George Lucas’s piloting skills were also pretty rough, on occasion.)

The writer-director might not be entirely responsible for the gear-grinding cinematic experience represented by The Last Jedi — the storyline, in which Rey (Daisy Ridley) seeks out a desolate Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the galaxy’s last hope — was always in danger of taking itself far too seriously.

The scenes between Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) take themselves way too seriously.

But he is certainly liable for the film’s clunky comedy, awkward action choreography and the disturbing proliferation of Meaningful Glances.

When the film opens, the Rebel Alliance is on the verge of annihilation.

Under the instructions of Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), Domhnall Gleeson’s obsequious General Hux has backed the remaining freedom fighters into an intergalactic corner.

Now that he has a device that can track them through hyperspace, all Leia and her followers can do is stay out of the range of his heavy artillery — until the fuel runs out.

Meanwhile, on a deserted and windswept island on the fringes of the known universe, Rey is attempting to persuade the monastic Skywalker to rejoin the fight.

Her efforts would appear to be fruitless.

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.

The Last Jedi boasts one spectacular set piece — a stylised light-speed collision between two warring mother ships — that hints at what Johnson and his team might have been capable of, under the right conditions.

John Boyega’s Finn gets short-changed with a preposterous subplot in The Last Jedi.

And the filmmakers have some fun digs at the classic male action hero persona — in one scene, Leia refers to Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) as a trigger happy fly boy, in another she tells him to get his head out of his cockpit.

But while there’s a genuine poignancy to the late Carrie Fisher’s CGI-enhanced performance as Leia, that’s got nothing to do with what’s happening on screen.

Rey weeps so much she’s in danger of dehydration — presumably this has something to do with her natural Jedi empathy — and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is an erratic adversary at best.

In The Last Jedi, movie magic has been replaced by hocus pocus. Or perhaps even mumbo jumbo — never has the eastern-western pop psychology of the franchise rung so hollow.

“We are what they grow beyond.” Only Yoda can deliver a line like that.

Skywalker has always been the franchise’s weakest link. Under his spiritual guidance, the epic space fantasy fizzes.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now showing.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (M)

** 1/2

Director: Rian Johnson

Starring: Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher

Verdict: Franchise veers off course

Originally published as REVIEW: After JJ Abrams’ Star Wars reboot, Rian Johnson drops the ball with The Last Jedi