A New American Tradition; Another "Meh" Fantasy Blockbuster for Christmas?

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2015)

While this film didn't quite cause me to shoot baffled glances, eyerolls, and chuckles with my neighboring theater-goers like the prequels did, it certainly left me feeling underwhelmed and a little embarrassed to have spent money on something so cynically aimed at getting me to do just that. There's just very little new and interesting here, outside of a compelling opening scene which features A) Max Von Sydow, and B) some welcome development on what it means to be a storm trooper. After that first 10 minutes though FORCE AWAKENS sadly goes strictly by-the-numbers, and hits many of the exact same notes that STAR WARS (and yes, I'm aging myself to refer to it not by its episode number) did including Death Star destroying a planet, cantina scene, droid with important data stashed on desert planet, game of holographic claymation chess, heroes sneaking around Death Star lowering shields, etc etc. There were a couple new things, like the first killer CGI tentacle aliens yet in a Star Wars movie, but they come and go so quick that you'll forget about them immediately.
The goofiest thing about this movie to me that kept striking me while watching, is how ridiculously small of a universe it establishes. Now, I'm no astronomer or physicist or anything, but in order for a planet to have gravity and an ecosystem, it has to be pretty big, right? Like, thousands of miles across? So, why is it that every time two important characters on the same quest happen to be on a planet they are within walking distance of each other? Okay, and if randomly crashing and marooned on said planet with the Empire hot on your tail, how would one have time to wander to a settlement unless one happened to be oh forget it! So, this Death Star is about as big as the planet Earth, but coincidentally has the prisoner interrogation room just an easy walk away from the important shield controls? Also, space itself is a pretty big place, right? So why is it so hard to hide from the Empire, say to go hide behind some random asteroid like they did in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK? How does news travel so quick, like that the Empire (or First Order, whatever) is looking for that Soccer-ball Droid travel instantly to this outlaw planet and to some random space smugglers? Is everyone tuned in on some kind of faster-than-light space TV/radio/internet service we never see? Why is everyone so quick to sell the heroes out? Does everyone just love and respect this First Order? Why? What have they done to earn such unwaivering loyalty the universe-over? Where'd they get the money from to buy off all these thugs unless the Space Smugglers and Cantina Woman were all just major coincidences? I think the real movie we needed to see was the one that answered these questions, not the one we got.
However the most immediate problem I noticed while watching was the lack of clear motivations by the main characters. They all felt like totally blank slates to me and kept splitting up and wandering around the cantina planet for reasons that aren't even properly explained. Why not stick with Han and just go straight to Princess Leia and the resistance once learning about them? Did Finn really have more important things to do after making the snap decision to kill off dozens of his own men? What also could have used explanation was who this Emperor Snoke character was (possibly Gargamel from "The Smurfs" or one of the trolls from the Jackson Hobbit?), how he took control, what he is trying to accomplish, and how he can find all these willing and obedient servants from all over the galaxy to work for him, especially considering that the casualty rates suffered in all these frequent Death Star explosions.
Okay, it certainly could have been worse. The special effects mostly looked pretty good, Williams's score soared, there was some effort to restore the lived-in grittiness of the original trilogy, and there was minimal CGI cartoon stupidity aside from Snoke and the Yoda-like lady who ran the cantina. I appreciate that there were more substantial female characters, though to me it all felt a little overboard as part of aiming the franchise in as politically correct a direction as possible. The only white men in the film were of course the two villains, unless you count Han Solo in perhaps Harrison Ford's most phoned-in performance in well, weeks. Sadly, he and Carrie Fisher have no chemistry at all anymore and we never get to see "the gang all back together again" in any one scene like we were all hoping for. What we do get is a "passing the torch to the new generation" type film focusing on millennial nobodies, much like such modern masterpieces as THE EXPENDABLES 3, INDIANA JONES 4, and Abrams's own STAR TREK reboot. If you loved those films, are physically or mentally under the age of 15, and find your soul aching and yearning to see a Star Wars-themed film on the big screen, this one is for you. Otherwise, it's much more palatably viewed as what it really is; a glossy and bloated fan-film rather than actually part of the Star Wars saga.
Lastly, I can't be the only one who sees it as an utterly cynical cash-grab to have Mark Hamill given front billing on the film when he's only in it about 30 seconds before the end credits roll: "Stay tuned for the next installment via a film which will actually star the person we claimed on the posters and trailers would be starring in THIS movie that'll just be another $15 please."