Review: "The Acolyte" is a frustrating waste of potential

Setting a Star Wars series a century before the prequels, completely disconnected from the Skywalker saga, was exactly what the franchise desperately needed. The Acolyte promised a dark, mystery-thriller exploring the hubris of the Jedi Order during the High Republic era. Instead, it delivered an incredibly disjointed, poorly paced mess that occasionally accidentally stumbles into greatness before immediately falling back into mediocrity.

Let’s start with the positives: Episode 5, where the mysterious Sith Lord is finally revealed, is excellent. Manny Jacinto delivers a charismatic, genuinely terrifying physical performance. The fight choreography in this episode heavily incorporates martial arts, offering brutal, kinetic lightsaber combat that easily ranks among the best the franchise has ever seen. The show is at its best when it shuts up and lets the stunt team take over.

Unfortunately, the writing is abysmal. The central mystery of the twin sisters, Osha and Mae, is drawn out over eight episodes with agonizingly clunky dialogue and motivations that change from scene to scene for absolutely no logical reason. Entire episodes are dedicated to flashbacks that we essentially already saw, killing whatever momentum the plot manages to build. The $180 million budget is completely invisible, with sets often looking like cheap fan films. It had all the ingredients to be a bold new direction for Star Wars, but the execution is painfully amateurish.