The Force is back, but not with a bang.

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2015)

I know, I know, Please don't kill me, although I see that some of you agree.
I will say this, I actually loved the new characters that were made for this generation of Star Wars. Fin acts a lot like a Star Wars fan trapped in a Star Wars movie and his origin was pretty cool. His chemistry with Rey was dynamic and to be blunt, it's good to see a strong female character in a Star Wars movie other than Princess Leia(who I loved in this movie as well).
Poe Dameron was a great character as well. He looks like a carbon copy of Hon Solo and that would have been the case if it were played by anyone one else other than Oscar Issac. I even like Adam Driver as the Dark warrior Kylo Ren.
I could go on and on with the many supporting characters, but I won't. Let's just say they all were developed well from the biggest to the trivial.
And speaking of Trivial, the attention to detail was amazing. It was not just quick scenes in the movie that would make Star Wars fans eyebrows raise when they realize the Easter egg they caught, but it looks like they add cool stuff that would make new fans go ga ga twenty years from now.
And the movie has an very epic appeal to it, as a good Star Wars movie should. the Visual effects are as stunning as the original trilogy.
Now here's the problem. The movie is not tight enough. I went into the film trilled at the fact that it was only going to be 16 mins over two hours instead of taking up half my day, but in reality this movie could have been two hours flat. Number seven had a lot of cool images but a lot of it dragged on a minute too long in an attempt to get dramatic effect.
And that's the other thing. All the images were cool, but I felt no emotion in it, and that's an important factor with the Force Awakens. a lot of stuff is going to happen that's suppose to make you tear up and suppose to make you clap for joy, but the only parts that connected with me emotionally were the parts that made me laugh. I noticed a lot of those fun moments were when the movie was poking fun at the franchise, which is easy to do, while the other emotions are not.
Bottom line, JJ Abrams' reboot of the Star Trek franchise was far better than his sequel to Star Wars. Everything he did that made me love that movie only made the Force Awakens OK. Something tells me this whole new trilogy will just be OK if I go by episode seven.