Average-y, Spark-less, Oomph-less, Point-less

Rating: 5/10 (17 December 2015)

The only two saving graces of this Star Wars outing is ole faithful Harrison Ford's Hans Solo and the new oldie Lupita Nyong'o's Maz Kanata.
The two new 'politically-correct' young leads have no chemistry, little charisma, and both mistook "annoying-perpetual-earnestness-of-expressions-and-behaviour" as acting - very much ala Shia Lebouf and Dev Patel's school of "monkey-can-act-so-can-I" variety. The two leads' earnestness is as stupefying and as laughable as the stoniness of Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen (and what has become of the latter?).
Storyline? Plot loopholes galore!
Script? Humdrum!
(E.g. You haven't seen the mother of your lost child for ages, and one of the first remarks is, "You changed your hair". Huh? Which 3-yr old wrote the script?)
Oscar Isacc is one of my favorite upcoming stars, but even he could not bring the magic into the whole pickle. Most frustrating of all is Carrie Fisher - whatever happened to the ebullient devil-may-care Princess Leia?! What we have here is a tired, bored and defeated looking persona that in no way channels gigantic-ear-phoned Leia. Even Chewbacca had more sprite!
And Adam Driver as the key villain?! My goodness - he looks so lost and unsure about his role, that I was more afraid of chuckling out loud.
And of course to wrap everything up is the wet cloth of a whole range of copied and caricatured scenes from Star Wars IV, which many reviewers have already pointed out here.
By the end of the movie  the tacky un-shrouding of THE Jedi inspires but a who-cares! Very doubtful Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker will be able to carry the next installment without Hans Solo. Might as well bring back JaJa Binks next . who cares!