Underwhelming villains, borrowed too much, but otherwise total perfection.

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2015)

Very minor spoilers within...
Simply put, my biggest gripe with the movie is the degree to which it borrowed from the original trilogy. Callbacks like the Falcon and Han Solo were perfectly fine, as they were completely relevant to the plot and made total sense. My biggest issues were the degree to which the resistance was identical to the original resistance, and the fact that the big issue in this movie was literally just the Death Star, but bigger. Fortunately, the characters' individual motivations and interactions were good enough to make up almost entirely for a few bland choices.
They unfortunately did not, however, make up for the movie's lackluster villains. Unlike Darth Sideous, Snoke's entire face was revealed early on in the movie. While the character's backstory remains shrouded in mystery, this character fails to appear mysterious, in and of himself. Kylo Ren also mirrors this. The trailer did a good job of hyping him up, but a poor one at portraying his true personality, as essentially an insecure, less mature Darth Vader. I didn't find the character particularly likable or detestable, simply thinking of him as an antagonist to be either killed, or turned to the light at some future point. On a more minor note, Captain Phasma was just... lame. I felt they were trying to go for another Boba Fett, but much like the other two Big Bads, her potential flopped. Nothing she did was impressive, on the contrary, making her appear borderline incompetent.
Those gripes aside, I cannot praise absolutely every other aspect of this movie enough. The characters were brilliant, their interactions and chemistry perfect. The protagonists were likable, and the humor balanced enough not to detract from the serious tone of the movie, unlike the prequel trilogy. No Jar Jar Binks allowed in this story! The characters mirrored previously loved characters, with Rey being a perfect mix of Luke's youth and Leia's independence, Po being essentially a friendlier young Han Solo, and Finn resembling Luke's inexperience and Han Solo's reluctance as well as his dedication for this installment's 'princess' character. And miraculously, they played their parts perfectly, managing to be completely fresh and new despite their similarities to old faces.
It even manages to make the new cute mascot, BB-8, as cute and iconic as R2-D2, something I thought was impossible!
This movie isn't perfect, but it's close.