Nostalgia personified

Rating: 6/10 (17 December 2015)

Mixed feelings on this one. Again the hype machine set my expectations way too high. The trailers were brilliant. When I see trailers that good, my mind starts to imagine what to expect from the plot, I just cant help it. When the picture in my head matches what I see on the screen, I view that as predictable and relatively enjoyable (if made well), when on the other hand a movie exceeds my imagination, I hail that movie as something amazing. This ones a mixed bag, but fundamentally the story elements and characters are not very well written, rushed in some areas and overwritten in others, the balance is wrong if you pardon the pun. I just didn't care for the wonderfully directed action scenes and didn't emotionally connect with the main protagonists. The Star Wars universe is wonderfully created here and seeing Han,Leia etc on the big screen is a great tick in the box but therein lies the problem, it serves to be a tick in the box; the whole thing just feels a bit forced. George Lucus got a bashing for the prequels, but thats because he's not a great Director of actors, but he a great story writer - the prequels though badly executed, were actually good stories. Fortunately the force awakens doesn't suffer some of the cringe worthy moments present in the prequels but the story is one that you've seen before. Being cynical then this is just another franchise and as such is just a precursor or advertisement if you like for all the memorabilia that will be available for the kids to enjoy. Go see it but be sure to dumb down your expectations.