I got over how ridiculous some of the scenes were. I realized how it's so extra like late Kurosawa and earthy like early Kurosawa. Johnson evokes that director as well as uses his own style to depict the last gasp of the original counterculture as it tries to pass on its wisdom to the new school. And what a new school! Boyega still does a capable job here as he did in TFA, but it's the pas de deux between Driver and Ridley that make this film. Driver as Kylo differentiates his second creepy hottie role from his first, and I am wordless to the faces he makes while Hux tries and fails to one-up him. And Ridley can feign movement within stillness like our generation's di Caprio. They're surrounded by characters that are purposely hard to read, which fits this year's theme of young people learning how fucked the world is. There's light and darkness, and the characters eventually reveal which sides they're on, but these characters' complexities make the canvas less of a bordered one and more of a swirl. Mmm, swirl.