7.5/10

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2015)

Look, there is no way in which one viewing of a Star Wars film can settle my judgment on it and that is the same for pretty much every film fan. It is too big of a thing, too exciting of a story for it not to compromise a part of my judgment at first screening. Plus, to say I was over excited and had massive expectations would be reductive. What I am saying is: take this review with a grain of salt, I may change many ideas on it once I see it again and let it be clear that the grade is very positive so I LIKED the film very much, but for now, here's my first impression.
Absolutely fabulous first hour. It felt like true Star Wars. It was just moving on with the a fascinating pace and brought a lot to the table. Then came the second hour and the more it went on the more it stumbled.
So, lets break it down. Daisy Ridely, John Boyega and Harrison Ford. Absolutely fantastic work from the three of them and that's not by chance since they are all given three interesting characters to play and rise to the occasion wonderfully. There is a lot of humor and whilst some of it really needed some cutting off, the core of it really works in the same organic way in which the OT does.
The cinematography of the film is undoubtedly fabulous, the shots are constantly beautiful. There is one long take from the ground which gives a 180 degree tracking shot of a battle from Finn's point of view: that was the most f***ing epic thing, I was screaming at the screen not to cut. Moreover, there are some spinning shots that just left me on the edge of my seat with my mouth open. And for a good reason. If there is something that the film really nails, it is giving context to almost every action scene. They feel urgent, they feel dangerous and most importantly: always motivated. The characters always feel in peril. They feel so organic you don't even think of them as action sequences.
Time to talk about the special and visual effects. Do they work? Without a doubt, they are amazing. My nit pick with them is the fact that they don't manage to get a seamless mix of CGI and practicality. There are many, many characters that just look amazing and all of them are practical. Every CGI character in the film really turned me off for some reason and I am not someone who shits on CGI just for the sake of it! The CGI characters simply didn't fit tonally with the rest and stuck out instead of looking as part of the film.
I can't believe I am writing this and I still hold out hope I am wrong and simply didn't notice it, but man that score was underwhelming. There are no new themes that stick out and all of the old ones are never embraced. It was really weird. Was it a bad score? Hell no, but was it worthy of Star Wars? I don't really think so.
Now lets talk about the true problem of the film: it doesn't earn its story beats as much as its character beats and it does not reach a balance of what to explain and what not to explain. What I mean is that, with the exception of Kylo Ren that starts out as a great menacing and different presence and then falls apart in the second half because of bad acting by Adam Driver and miscasting in the first place, the characters remain interesting and genuine throughout the film, the story doesn't. I cannot stress enough how good the first half is, how perfectly Star Wars it feels and then we end up in this rushed, messy third act that tries to keep up with a lot of things and doesn't manage, especially because said things aren't organic and needed to the story in the first place.
Look, I could truly go on writing here forever, there are so many things that can be said and that I talked about for two hours yesterday out of the theater with my friends. I'll just share thought that stuck me whilst watching the film that kind of sums up the review for me is this: watching Episode VII I truly embraced and realized what is so special about the OT. Those movies aren't so ingrained in culture by chance. There is something truly mythic and absorbing about them and "The Force Awakens" falls short in capturing that wonder, adventure and mythology of them for a slew of reasons. Yet, it does succeed in making a very good film with great Star Wars stuff in it that I will proudly cherish.