Decent popcorn movie. Better than the prequels, not Empire or Return.

Rating: 6/10 (17 December 2015)

The Force Awakens marks the true return of the Star Wars saga. Packed with high visual effects, a cohesive story and a hard ending, this is a movie worth seeing in theatres.
This film is not without its faults.
The good:
The acting is good across the board. Sometimes Daisy Ridley and John Boyega come across as melodramatic or amateur, but Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver and the side players bring it, in a big bad way.
The visual effects and overall visual style are right on point, there are no unnecessary camera wobbles or JJ lens flares to be found, and the film is shot more practically than you might expect.
The screenplay is more or less solid.
The Not So Great:
This movie, for better or worse, is a back door remake of Episode IV. The plot points quite mirror those of Star Wars. You might say this is the Superman Returns of the Star Wars universe, whereas the Phantom Menace was the Superman IV of the franchise.
This movie is good, but there is a LOT of fanfare in here.
Why is Kylo Ren cos-playing as Darth Vader? This is truly never explained.
What are Han and Chewbacca's motivations?
A lot of characters do things that seem to be merely through backs to Episode IV? These are legitimate questions.
In some ways the prequels were more honest than The Force Awakens, in the sense that you understand why characters do the things they do, and this is coming from someone who is not a fan of the prequels,
Overall, I can't crap on this movie. It delivers on everything it promised, it's just a little too "fan-servicey" for me personally. I dare say that unlike something perhaps like Prometheus or Star Trek, The Force Awakens is less intellectually sophisticated than I would have liked, but that doesn't make it bad, it's just straight forward. It's not a thinking man's movie.
Cheers.