Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens (Gripes Review)

Rating: 5/10 (2 January 2016)

Here be spoilers... I was tempted to do my own video review for this one, but what's the point... this guy pretty much nails it. Not a bad action movie, but a pretty poor Star Wars film. Despite the locations, vehicles and costumes, I came away feeling like I hadn't seen a Star Wars movie. I love Star Wars and everything that Lucas added to create those worlds... but I'm the first to admit that Lucas is a poor "actor's" director... the result has always been weak dialogue that is unconvincingly delivered. At best, the first six films only had 2 or 3 scenes each where the cast managed to add emotional weight to the plot. I have no doubt that the actors had far less to do with that problem than the writing, direction and editing... Star Wars has always suffered from "school play" performances. In fact, the only 2 actors in first six movies who were cable of delivering their lines regularly with any level of credulity were Guinness and McDiarmid (in episode VI). I think that if you could speak candidly to any of the cast who had a decent acting career at the time, they might express a similar view. I suppose that was one of the biggest let downs for me. Having broken away from Lucas, I expected to see a lot more weight and credibility in the dialogue and performances. Unfortunately not the case. This inevitably leads to the viewer not being emotionally committed to the characters and therefore indifferent to their fates. I don't think this is an issue of genre. I believe that a movie's being fantasy/adventure does not negate good performances. The LOTRs movies are a reasonably good example. Snoke? Aside from the name having far too many possible similitudes that would lead to nothing but derision, why didn't they actually have the character be a giant? General Hux's "N" rally ranting and raving was presumably supposed to be reminiscent of a certain well known dictator, but ended up being plain laughable. The idea of a soldier who becomes repelled by the violence he witnesses is a good plot mover and a firm scaffolding for character development (although not particularly innovative) but here it was just not convincing and as such, entirely wasted. I think I expected a whole lot more from Abrams. And what's with killing the most renowned actor in the cast in the first 5 minutes? Von Sydow could have added some real colour. He had all of about two and a half minutes in the Wolfman, but it was one of the most memorable moments of the entire film. The locations suffered massively from the lack of Lucas and his team. Dull and repetitive. Where was the planet where people live in symbiosis with giant spiders who weave hanging nests in which the inhabitants live? Where was the dried up lava planet whose surface is now black obsidian except for the odd lava pool... where the inhabitants live in dug-out naturally formed mushroom-shaped-bubbles of that dried up lava? Those are just a couple of ideas I sketched out with my son 2 minutes after watching the movie... surely the new team could have done better? The one location that offered promise, the planet that was entirely covered in little islands was sorely underutilised. I did enjoy seeing the Falcon parked up in different environments. Some of the Death Stary/Star Destroyery interiors were pretty faithful. The movie also has some great 3D environment camera work. Chewie's been to the hairdresser too. Many people I have worked with share the opinion that the 2nd movie, in each of the prior trilogies is the best of the three. Maybe that's the aim here... to quite deliberately make the 1st somewhat lacklustre, so that the next will shine? This director is certainly no stranger to good writing and character direction... so let's hope for the best. All this said, it's still worth going to see on the big screen... especially if you have kids who are too young to be anchored to the 1st two trilogies.