My biggest beef with the previous two episodes is that they were so consciously mimicking elements from Episodes 4-6 that they didn't bring much new to the party. The Force Awakens was pretty much a carbon copy of A New Hope with updated visuals; The Last Jedi had some new bits, but two extended scenes were well-executed remakes of the throne room scene from Return of the Jedi and the Hoth battle scene. It wasn't just a homage, it was, well, full on pandering. On this rubric, Rise of Skywalker was actually somewhat refreshing - there was a lot of derivative material and nudge/wink references, but little in the way of full-on copies. I walked out feeling like perhaps they were ready to move on from the baggage of the past.
And yet. There was still so much unnecessary bits tacked on just to make people happy. Lando's role was entirely superfluous, as was Chewbacca's. All of the Leia scenes were awkwardly stitched into the plot - you could see they were straining to make the cut scenes from The Force Awakens into something they could use and keep a coherent storyline. Even the Luke/Rey scene - following on from one of the most interesting parts of Episode VIII - seemed a little too trite and missing much of the narrative tension that had made that interaction interesting. It felt like we were being swaddled in a bunch of old Star Wars cameos to make us look past any flaws in the underlying story.
The story itself was okay, but nothing spectacular - lots of MacGuffins (random Sith treasure map, absolutely absurd knife thing, etc.), a lot of extraneous characters, and a lot of just-so coincidences. It wasn't as full of absurd plot holes as The Last Jedi, but it definitely had its issues. The whole 'short hyperspace jumps that magically end up in difficult to navigate places' was particularly egregious. I was also disappointed with the painfully short timeline they were given that was then promptly forgotten about by everyone involved. The plot was busy with lots of scene shifts but sometimes they didn't seem to move forward the story all that much (the whole bit at alien Burning Man was pretty useless). I'd give it a C+ or B-.
The real issues came with character development. Poe and Finn got throwaway love interests (possibly to kill the dreams of shippers?) who simply didn't move the plot forward one iota. We got some poorly explored backstory on Poe that came too late with too little context. Rose was pretty much excised completely - I didn't love her in The Last Jedi, but they could have done something interesting with her character, especially in the context of the implicit message at the end of the previous film about a popular uprising.
I liked the underlying idea of the Rey/Kylo Ren development arc - I don't really like Adam Driver in general and thought his performance in the previous two films was overly angsty, but I thought he really had some solid moments of brilliance showing his evolution - the look on his face when he gets the lightsaber from Rey was pretty fantastic. I liked where they were going with Rey's character - I hate the daddy issues Star Wars traffics in, and the conclusion from the previous film appeared to leave her unencumbered by a freighted past. I think she was a solid casting choice and they did a really good job by (a) making her a woman and (b) not pairing her up at the end. She does a good job at portraying vulnerability in a way that Mark Hamill only managed to portray as indecision. The complex Rey/Ren story was this close to being something really profound - but then they made it into yet another episode of 'there's a really really evil puppetmaster, let's get together and beat him and then kill off the morally complex redemptive character so as not to confuse the sense of victory'. Where did Rey have to really make a moral choice? She needed, at best, to be tough and resolved to do good, but I never really thought she'd succumb. There was no moment of shocked recognition, no violent self-hatred, no true quandry. I was left wanting.
In general, I thought the themes of the movie ended up being a little trite rather than profound. It's too simple to root for hope and the fundamental goodness in people when your opponents are cartoonishly evil. But what about the entire system that supported the Empire and the First Order? We see hints of it in the previous film, but then go back to blowing up the Really Bad guys in ships. There's hints of this in the discussion of conscription of children and spontaneous mutinies, but it's not borne out in any meaningful manner. This was an opportunity to add nuance and a new story to the Star Wars universe, and they blew it.
The writing was just okay. Some parts were too Disney (especially the slightly cringey Poe speech before the final battle), and other bits were just stilted. Not 'discourse on sand' Episode 2 garbage, but nothing like the snappy repartee in Episode 5. It seemed almost overburdened with what it was trying to do.
I'm not sure how I feel about the new Force abilities they developed here - stealing or giving life essence for healing, Force teleportation of objects through this odd Rey/Ren interaction (that apparently wasn't done by Snoke? What the hell is a dyad in the Force anyways?), etc. It opened some interesting narrative capabilities and allowed for an extended confrontation between the main characters, but it seemed at times to be too easy.
I will say, however, that the visuals in the film may have been the best I've ever seen in this franchise. There were a lot of startlingly beautiful scenes with absolutely perfect lighting and cinematography. The wave fight scene was gorgeous, some of the scenes on the Sith planet were pitch perfect, and the Rey/Ren telepathy scenes were really well done. If that's what $275 million gets you, it's worth it. I've seen some critique of J. J. Abrams on this score, and while I've groused about some of his cinematic choices in previous efforts (especially with the Star Trek reboot), I was pleasantly surprised here.
I'd give it overall a B. I walked out having enjoyed it more than either of the two previous installments of the trilogy, despite its flaws. I only hope that someone at Disney lets the next writers explore some new material.