Not the New Hope I was wanting, but no Phantom Nonsense either...

Rating: 6/10 (11 January 2016)

I was cautiously optimistic about this, with memories of the often-hated prequels still reasonably fresh in my mind. J.J is a good director, I enjoyed Mission: Impossible 3, Super 8 and Star Trek, but the problem with following up on someone's work is that sometimes it just comes across as fan service, a giddy young fella that tries to cram in all the memorable moments that he loved as a child without bringing anything new to the table. Despite this, I was happily surprised, this was a thoroughly enjoyable film. There is unnecessary CGI for a major character, and it's really bad, like "Aliens at the end of Crystal Skull-bad" and yes, the complaints about the story leaning too heavily on the OT story beats do ring true. Despite the prequels not being what people were expecting, those films brought a lot of fresh and new ideas to the universe. In Force Awakens, it's very familiar, the question is, is that what Star Wars fans want right now?
What we get here feels like a best-of sizzle reel of the first three films. Does this mean I didn't like it though? Eeeeh, kind of-but not really... Harrison Ford is fantastic as Han Solo, I haven't seen a performance from him this good since The Fugitive. John William's score is amazing, Adam Driver is great as the film's villain, and while it was too familiar, it was fun seeing the old cast mingle with the new really well. And that ending...I got chills.