'Rise of Skywalker' is the worst reviewed 'Star Wars' movie since 'Phantom Menace'
- "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" has a "rotten" 57% Rotten Tomatoes critic score, as of Wednesday morning.
- The only live-action "Star Wars" movie with a worse score is "The Phantom Menace," which has a 53%.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" is facing mixed reviews ahead of its release this weekend.
The movie, which has been touted as the conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, has a "rotten" 57% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 116 reviews as of Wednesday morning. The only live-action "Star Wars" movie with a worse score is 1999's "The Phantom Menace," which has a 53% critic score (the "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" 2008 animated movie has an 18% score).
"Attack of the Clones" has a 65% score and "Solo: A Star Wars Story" has a 70% score. "The Last Jedi," which has drawn criticism from some fans and even some involved in the film, like actor John Boyega, has a 91% score.
Business Insider's Jason Guerrasio wrote that "Rise of Skywalker" "tries so desperately to service the fan base that it loses sight of the story it's telling."
Below are more negative reactions from critics:
- "In its anxiety not to offend, it comes off more like fanfiction than the creation of actual professional filmmakers," Time's Stephanie Zacharek wrote. "A bot would be able to pull off a more surprising movie."
- "['The Rise of Skywalker'] is as an epic failure of nerve," the Los Angeles Times' Justin Chang wrote. "This 'Rise' feels more like a retreat, a return to a zone of emotional and thematic safety from a filmmaker with a gift for packaging nostalgia as subversion."
Not all of the reviews are critical of the movie, though.
Richard Roeper wrote that it "rarely comes close to touching greatness, but it's a solid, visually dazzling and warmhearted victory for the Force of quality filmmaking."