Spectacularly, comically bad

Rating: 1/10 (2 January 2016)

As others have said, this is an awkward attempt to remake episode 4, but a poorly done one, at that. There were many times I laughed at the ridiculousness transpiring on screen.
SPOILERS FOLLOW.
The bad guy Ren. His mask apparently serves no purpose but to intimidate. When he finally takes it off, you realize he's just a long haired emo kid who probably dropped out of a boy band. He's supposed to be the First Order's (aka the new Dark Side on the block) best warrior, following in the footsteps of Vader. He powerfully wields the force early in the film, but come crunch time, for the sake of the lack of a way to write their way out of it, he becomes about six shakes of useless.
Rey, the heroine. She only has one special skill: Everything. She weighs about a buck-five, but don't let that fool you. Early in the film, she beats up a pair of dudes trying to rob her, a la Bruce Lee. Then, she slugs Finn, the guy trained as a soldier since birth, with her stick, knocking him clear on his rear. Did I mention she weighs like a buck-five? Abrams often gets some kind of jolly out of female characters knocking bigger men around. Think Sydney, Kate, Juliet, Ana Lucia, Rey... She does all this during a time when they established that she doesn't even use the force. But Rey does it all -- she's a scavenger, pilot, mountain climber, sharp-shooter, fighter, linguist, mechanic, martial arts expert, etc... People who say she's a "Mary Sue" exaggerate - she could beat Mary Sue at anything. She even knows the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo. After she was in it for a few minutes. No joke. How many times does she save Finn? When she hits someone or lands after jumping, Abrams throws in this low-pitched bass sound effect like a semi-truck just hit a building. Like Abrams is trying to imitate when Thor lands with his hammer. She's a combination of Dr. Manhattan, Rambo, and Superman, minus the blue skin, kryptonite allergy, muscles, and at least 120 pounds. In advertisements, she is called "tough." Right there with a picture of baby-face Daisy Ridley. We are supposed to look at that and think, "Now there's someone tough." It's one of the poorest casting choices in a while - at least since little Tom Cruise was cast as the hulking, intimidating Jack Reacher. It doesn't work. If you think about it, the reason Michael J. Fox was never cast as Rambo is because everyone would have laughed and said, this is ridiculous. I guess the 21st century's blinders are opaque enough to make people think Ridley is convincingly "tough." Disney and Abrams merely advance one of the insulting stereotypes that women are weak on screen unless they are acting like they are jacked on testosterone.
Rey's use of the force was especially comical. Somebody tells her the force is real and around her. A few hours later (or maybe it was only minutes), she outduels Ren in a mind force battle in her first time ever even *trying* to use the force. Then she faces the dark apprentice in the climactic light saber fight. She's never wielded a light saber until that moment. The fight is close. So how does she tip the scales? Ta da! Abrams and his writers call on the deus ex machina! She channels the force, grits her teeth to show the audience she's really gonna use that buck-five body for a beat-down, and does just that to Ren a few seconds later! No training with the force. Ever. At this point, training will only harm the perfection of her abilities. Then, after the fight, in the snow, in the woods, she doesn't have a hair out of place. She doesn't have a scratch. Not a peck of mud. Nothing. Her face still looks 11 years old, pristine and with a healthy shine to boot. Like those comical James Bond moments of yesteryear where the suit isn't scuffed a bit and he saunters away all cool and unrealistically.
The choreography in the film was also poor. People can complain all they want about Episode 1 in general, but Darth Maul, thanks to a talented Ray Park, delivered some of the best saber duels we've seen on screen. With Rey and the Emo Kid, we get all the clumsy action of waving a sword around with a lack of dexterity that we haven't seen since Alec Guinness was 63. When we first see Rey running in the desert along a shipwreck, Ridley's so awkward, and it looks like her center of gravity is gonna give.
The storm troopers still aren't accurate, though. Too tough to write around that, I guess. This story says storm troopers are trained from birth. You see, that's why Finn defected. His conscience pricked him. That's all it takes. And so one storm trooper defected. ONE.
Let's not forget other ludicrous moments. The lack of bad guys' defense, once again, to the one area of the death star that can destroy it. They didn't even try to write something new. There's a point where someone says something like, "Another death star?" In the film. But then, someone says something like, "No, this thing is much bigger!" Ah. That makes it original then. It's like a death star. Only bigger. And then how Phasma shuts down the shields so easily. The shields on the whole "bigger" death star. The whole thing in like 5 seconds. Shut down by some lower ranking captain's keystroke.
This movie will have value in the future as fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000.