Casual watchers will love it but die hard fans will be torn.

Rating: 4/10 (16 December 2015)

I want to begin this by saying I'm not a massive fan of the franchise. I've watched all of the saga and really enjoyed them as a kid, and I was actually quite looking forward to this installment.
The film boasts a plethora of exhilarating action scenes and fantastic visuals but its narrative, writing and character development is where it lacks. The story takes parts of the previous plots and freshens them up with some new faces and some quality CGI but it all seems too familiar and predictable.
The characters are just dull. They show no real personality and personally, I just didn't care about them enough to want them to survive the ordeal. It was great to see the old cast make a reappearance but it seemed extremely forced; they proved barely nothing to the actual plot and seemed like they were there just to appease fans of the old series. Also, the new villain is probably one of the most uninspired characters in the saga; a tasteless being with a bipolar accent between American, Scottish and Irish and a reused backstory.
The main narrative is a loose repeat of 'A New Hope' but it wasn't executed as well and just dragged on for the 2 hour and 15 minute runtime. The writing wasn't great. I feel like since Disney got their hands on the franchise, they've completely encapsulated it by adding ridiculous amounts of comedy in a way that comes off as slapstick and seems way too modern and contrasts the serious moments terribly.
Overall, I think that the new generation are gonna love it because it's harmless fun and it's a predominantly young cast. I also think it's a great platform for the new actors who are all relatively unknown but I think dedicated fans are gonna have a very 'Marmite' opinion of this; they'll either love it or disregard it entirely. Me, personally, think the saga should've ended with Return of the Jedi.