The heart of Star Wars was lost already though this was the best they could probably do

Rating: 7/10 (22 December 2019)

In The Force Awakens, Han Solo is killed by Kylo Ren. We are told this advances the story. But I disagreed. Why bring Harrison Ford 35 years later just to kill him? Struck me as heartless.
But the Disney folks weren't done. They killed Luke Skywalker too and treated him quite un-heroically in the last film. A lot of fans didn't like that and the director of that film has since been dismissed.
Now Abrams, the director of The Force Awakens returns, and we are given hope.
But the movie fails from the beginning, basically giving away the whole plot right in the first few paragraphs. Not something George Lucas would have done. The story lost a lot of its mystery and buildup by what happens in the first 5-10 minutes.
The rest of the film is basically a series of chase scenes to get you back to where we started. Without giving away too much, you are being asked to swallow quite a bit of what is even plausible for a Star Wars movie.
Some scenes should have been left on the cutting room floor particular the scene on a desert planet where there is a dancing festival. Reminded me of a mix of Jar Jar Binks and the Ewoks.
This movie did not have young kids in mind particularly with the bloody beginning which had little point to it. Also the knights that Kylo Ren assembled had no place in the film either and were not explained and seemed like a Lord of the Rings ripoff.
The good: Daisy Ridley is great, Driver is pretty good also. Carrie Fisher is treated well but they do not spend enough time on her during a critical scene after she intervenes in a fight between Ren and Rey.
There are a few good laughs and a few scenes that will pull on your emotional strings. Some nice returns of a few old time Star Wars actors bump it up a notch.
Probably a 7.5 and definitely better than the last two films but what this is missing is really Luke Skywalker and a plausible explanation to believe in these events.
The first three Lucas films made sometimes veered away from what was believable but ultimately tried very hard to keep it believable. This movie did a better job than the last two on that front but still fell short.
And the love interest of Poe was really a totally wasted misdirection of the plot in my opinion.
What saves this film is the return of some key nostalgia pieces but is really just a salvage job.