[Groundhog]

Finally got a chance to watch it last weekend, and liked it more than I thought I would based on what I'd heard. The tone was very different to what I expected with even a touch of horror mixed in, and it was certainly a lot more "straight ahead" than the other films, with next to no side story. Normally that's a negative, but I think it worked OK here - the pacing felt like a two hour episode of Clone Wars.

I found the fan service scenes a bit heavy-handed as usual and I wonder if that's due to the number of other scenes that were cut with all of these (presumably) staying in. The cuts do seem a bit jarring as there were a few little threads hinted at that never got properly explored. I also feel like they bowed to the toxic internet backlash re: Rose and reduced her to a role to be about the same as the dude from Lord of the Rings in this one, which made Episode 8's little side adventure all the more pointless.

It was definitely more of a visual spectacle than it was a great story, but I still think I'd rate it a touch higher than episode 7 and one whole shelf up from 8.