Not in the same league as Revenge of the Sith but definitely good

Rating: 9/10 (5 January 2016)

First, I'm going to mention that I will not add any spoilers here - although if you didn't see the movie yet it's very likely you've heard them somewhere else.
OK, so if you looked over the other reviews here and over the general appreciation, both IMDb score and Metascore, you might be very confused and I wouldn't blame you. The truth is that the movie is not a masterpiece. It is however a pretty good movie. I'm completely baffled by the amount of so-called "Star Wars fans" who completely bash this movie. It's one thing to say that the movie didn't reach up to your expectation. A totally other to give 1 star and complain that you cannot give a negative score. I am seriously wondering when's the last time they went to see a movie.
Going back to the movie, "The force awakens" had to start off where "Return of the Jedi" left off. I feel like that was a really big challenge and the movie measured up to the expectations. It introduced a couple of new and quite entrancing characters while reinventing the older ones. It created a new and mysteriously powerful villain (if theories on the Internet are to be believed we're in for some serious suspense in the following movies) and it left behind a couple of intriguing questions. I was thoroughly entertained by it, it definitely didn't bore me. While it does recycle some of the older plot ideas, my feeling was that this was 100% on purpose, a ruse, and that the scenarists have a couple of aces down their sleeves to deviate it entirely for the next two movies. The ending certainly leaves a lot of room in that direction. The visuals are amazing. Rich and realistic, much closer to the older movies than the so tiring effects in the prequels. The action is tight, although a bit tiring and the scenario contains those funny little moments - maybe one too many. But all in all, while not a masterpiece, I found it an enjoyable movie.
P.S. Going through the list of so called "plot holes" reported by other viewers, I have to say I didn't find many that deemed attention. Some events might be a bit stretched but weren't so important imho (but hey, there are similar examples in the old movies), others may easily be explained by following movies (some of the theories definitely validate them) and others are downright explained in the movie.