Utterly dull except for the last 30 minutes

Rating: 5/10 (19 December 2016)

I went to see this film with high expectations given the positive reviews from both professional critics and general public alike. About an hour in to it I was utterly shocked at how incredibly dull and plodding it was. I found I had little or no empathy for the characters, in fact the only character of any interest was ironically not human! (A droid the name of which escapes me) I'm sure the die hard star wars fans may like it but anyone with a simple passing interest in the franchise will be falling asleep in the theatre.
Basically the entire story could easily have been done in about 45 minutes but it was padded out for what seemed like at least 2 hours. Also, they appear to have emulated the ill advised CGI cameo of long dead/very old actors that can be found in films such as Tron Legacy and Terminator Salvation. The result was then and still is a character that looks like they are out of a computer game. It was so distracting that I wasn't really able to pay attention to the dialogue, not that it mattered too much as the plot was so dull anyway.
The final 30 minutes of the film is action packed Star Wars space battles and was really fun and entertaining. The way it leads in to Episode IV was also very cool although I would have preferred not to see Princess Lea's CGI plastic face at the end which just looked like a freak. Overall this is one for the fans only - otherwise don't waste your time and money.