A Crowded Blaze of Nostalgia and Charisma

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2016)

As with any film that has the buzz of The Force Awakens, it's easy to slip into hyperbole here. But in many ways, this is simply a very well- crafted example of a typical modern blockbuster. It just happens to be Star Wars, and in that it is both a blessing and a curse.
One good comparison would be The Avengers. You have a talented, charismatic group of characters playing off each other with great chemistry in a well-paced, confidently directed story that has plenty of action and humor. In short, great thrill-based entertainment. But as with The Avengers, The Force Awakens does not prioritize its actual story very highly. There is a fresh quest-based idea (set up in the opening crawl) that is really a great idea, but the film only loosely maintains focus on that. There is just too much going on, introductions of new characters and reunions of old characters.
And that brings us to the nostalgia play. It is great to see Star Wars once again sparkling with snappy energy and wit, and once again graced in presence by the beloved original characters. But it did not need to directly re-stage so very many specific story, plot and location ideas from the classic trilogy. Unfortunately, in doing so this film loses a bit of its own focus (re: the quest) in its familiar detours.
That being said, in almost every way other than story, The Force Awakens is a better-than-average sci-fi/fantasy film, and the terrific new cast of characters bode well for the future.
In hiring JJ Abrams, Lucasfilm brought on board someone who knows how to direct actors and stitch together something eminently engaging. One of the great ironies of The Force Awakens is that even as it firmly refutes nearly everything about the prequel era, and corrects for many of the missteps that weighed those films, it also makes it much easier to appreciate George Lucas the visionary. His latter-day Star Wars films were never this easy to watch, but they did posses a mythic, intrepid weirdness that is now missing. Hopefully, future Star Wars installments will *truly* get back to the beginning by finding a happy medium. Only then will balance truly be restored.