Disney + Review - Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)

In my opinion, The Acolyte is the definition of boring and inconsistent. It is pitched as Kill Bill meets Frozen, Rashomon, and a murder mystery. It’s a concoction of different ideas, none of which I find engaging.

The action is just okay. While it is well-choreographed, I feel the camera work leaves a lot to be desired. At times, the action is shot too close and with too much movement for you to truly appreciate what is happening. During daytime action, you can see everything, but the lightsabres look more like toys than actual weapons. To me, the pinnacle of sword-fighting action is the Rurouni Kenshin films. They have similar cinematography choices to The Acolyte, however, they are infinitely better.

Star Wars has taken inspiration from Akira Kurosawa since its inception, so taking inspiration from Rashomon was inevitable. The show uses a variation of the Rashomon effect. However, what makes the Rashomon effect so impactful is the idea that what we might be seeing is not actually how it played out but rather what the character believes occurred. The Acolyte is similar to Vantage Point in its use of this effect, where there is an objective truth, but we see events from different perspectives. I feel this half-baked attempt leads to a boring narrative. The show wants you to question what you have been told, but it never shows anything that could be a lie.

The plot replicates episodes of Columbo: you know who the killer is, but you don’t know the why. This will make or break core elements of the show for you. I found the why to be less intriguing and more confusing, and at times badly conveyed. This is highlighted the most with the character of Mae.

Mae might be one of the worst-written characters in recent memory. Her motivations feel entirely selfish and unrelatable, especially when she’s meant to be sympathetic. She quickly switches her motivations and goals. I just do not understand her character, and it feels like the writers don’t either

The common pattern in my criticisms is the writing. The show feels shoddily written. Lines of dialogue feel stiff, as seen when Osha and Mae argue. Their dialogue exchange is: ‘The Jedi are bad.‘ ‘The Jedi are good.’ I never thought I would hear such lazy lines from a Star Wars show. A key issue is that the writers don’t do a good job of creating a mystery. If you like a mystery that asks a lot of questions and has reveals that are so obvious, then you are in for a good time.

But I feel the biggest reason the writing is lackluster is that, at the end of the day, the show doesn’t have much to say. It seems to want to be an anti-copaganda show, where the Jedi are the police, and it aims to convey the message that the Jedi are a corrupt and flawed institution. However, the status quo is not altered; the Jedi are just flawed people who make mistakes.

I do not hate The Acolyte. This review might be overly negative, but for me, The Acolyte should have been the show that reignited the magic for me. It is set in a new time frame with Lee Jung-Jae, who I think is an incredible actor. I wanted to love this, but at the end of the day, I keep thinking to myself: Why have we never seen these robot chair pilots further in the timeline?