Feels like classic Star Wars with new faces.

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2015)

Good....Goooooood.
That's basically what I was doing upon leaving the theater an hour ago. I feel there will be a wide variety of opinions for The Force Awakens but for this life long Star Wars fan, I believe the Force was Strong with this addition.
I think most of the negative posts will come from older fans who want to see the edgy adult flick a lot of our childhood classics have been turned into like the Marvel and DC comic flicks, and while for me personally that would be awesome, I think the team creating this new set of films hit a much better winning combination by keeping the flick true to the classic hero adventure and family appropriate style that made the original trilogy such a classic.
I'll start by pointing out the only negative points and get them out of the way, yes, there was quite a bit of the cheesy humor and some fairly over dramatic acting, especially in the beginning. And yes, there was an over abundance of throw backs to the original trilogy that did come off as pandering. But with those exceptions, I think the film did a great job setting up a big new trilogy, especially after the abysmal Episodes I-III.
You could tell this was directed by JJ Abrams, it felts like the Star Trek remakes, especially the action scenes. At first his style didn't appeal to me but just as he did with Star Trek, he really builds his characters over time as well as his plot lines.
The action was freaking intense, definitely the highlight of the movie. The ground fights were believable and gritty, no mass of Jedi's tossing robots all around and storm troopers falling by the thousand, no overuse of CGI, it felt like real combat (with blaster rifles and light sabers). The ship to ship combat scenes were beautiful, though gravity was very subjective in some cases. Tie fighters flying in with a rising sun in an Apocalypse Now style assault...shut up and take my money!
The movie is PG-13 and Disney is now the overseer, you aren't going to get something like the Batman reboot, and honesty I don't think it should go that route. This really brought me back to how I felt when watching the original Trilogy on VHS, it's a film the entire family can enjoy while not going full Jar Jar Binks. I'm already looking forward to the next installment and hoping JJ Abrams follows form and brings out some serious Dark Side in the future.
Plot- 8/10 Action- 10/10 Acting- 8/10 Effects- 10/10