Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens is one of the most difficult movies to comment on for two reasons: the first being that anything anyone is going to write in criticism will fall coldly on the numb, dead ears of the true believers in the Force, and two; The Force Awakens is made up of almost wall to wall spoilers that makes it hard to give even a superficial description of the action without giving all sorts of revelations, ranging from essential to the just kinda neat, away.
What I can say is that if you've seen the the first Star Wars movie, 1977's retroactively titled Episode IV - A New Hope, you have pretty much 90% of the plot taken care of. Director and co-writer J.J. Abrams, master of the hommage, doesn't so much remake that seminal film, as reference the bejeebies out of it. Abrams, as evidenced by his treatment of the Star Trek franchise, is also effective at taking the original cast, props and tropes of a beloved series and blends them with the next generation of same in a way that seems organic rather than forced. He presses the limits of that conceit a bit here, but I think all in all the way the three key members of the first generation, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, are reintroduced into the story makes all of them essential to the proceeding rather than simply nostalgic add-on's to appease the fan base.
In full disclosure, I am not a Star Wars fanboy. I should be, considering I came of age during the years that the first trilogy was unfolding, but I wasn't seduced by either side the Force. I did see the first film a couple of times at the time of its release, and played with the action figures (a miniature x-wing fighter was one of my favorite toys), but my enthusiasm didn't survive the onset of puberty.
That said, The Force Awakens totally worked on me at the gut emotional level. From the the opening crawl I found my self having to literally hold back tears of prepubescent joy. I may not be a true believer, but Star Wars (Episode IV, anyway) did occupy a key place in my childhood. So, with every referential nod to the past and reintroduction of an old character I found the inner child that longs for something innocent, straight forward and thrilling overtaking and dominating the mature, adult me, and I kind of liked it. If I felt like jumping up and cheering at the title card, I can only imagine what hard core fans were feeling.
As I wrote, criticism is pointless against the power of the Force, but birds gotta fly and fish gotta swim, and I gotta criticize, at least a little. And here are a few difficulties I had.
So, let me start by saying that the acting, especially by the younger set, reminded me of kids playing at Star Wars in the backyard; when they're in tight situations the actors emotively rattle off, in earnestly breathless stammers, some techno-jargon gibberish that sounds made up on the spot. Daisy Ridley, John Boyenga, Oscar Isaac (our heroes) and Adam Driver (our villain) may all be good actors, but this isn't the project to make that judgment on. The best performance is given by Lupita Nyong'o, in the ultimate example of an actress disappearing inside a character.
Important persons and pieces of hardware just seem to show up or are stumbled upon most improbably at just the right time. In the same vein powers are discovered and instantaneously perfected in ways that, again, comes off as a little too cutesy and convenient. I mean, Luke had the Force, but even he had to practice with that spinning ball and train under Yoda before he could use a light saber like a Jedi, and here our would be Jedi comes off like an interstellar Jason Bourne who wakes up one morning with previously unknown marshal skills fully formed.
And the villain just doesn't come close to matching the dreadful menace of Darth Vader, whose specter looms large throughout as the great missing piece that would complete the galactic circle. Initially we didn't know who or what Vader was, and he isn't humanized until very late in the trilogy. Here both the villain's identity and humanity are revealed rather early, robbing of us of a special tension born of mystery.
All these observation, valid as I may think they are, are admittedly beside the point. This is a movie best enjoyed with adult intelligence, if not turned off, at least dulled a bit. Don't ask too many questions, just enjoy the ride. Normally, that a movie isn't terribly deep would be a criticism, but here it isn't. The Force Awakens taps into the innocent imagination of childhood, where wonder is more important than logic, and the right things magically happen at the right time.
Maybe in a few weeks I'll come back with a "spoiler" review, after more people have seen it, and I've seen it a second time. Then I can get into more specifics of what I liked and why without feeling like I ruined it for people.
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