Well-made, but ultimately shallow

Rating: 4/10 (7 July 2017)

Star wars, the force awakens has all the makings of a great movie, and sometimes nearly reaches them. Its editing, pacing, cinematography, music and visual effects are amazing, and you can tell JJ Abrams put effort and care into making this movie look and feel like a true original star wars movie, and yes I said TRUE. Along with the competent filmmaking on display are some truly incredible performances by the cast. I wont argue that Daisy Ridley's acting is perfect (believe me it isn't), but she defiantly shows more emotion than Hayden Christensen in the prequels. The old cast is great once again, even though some characters don't have, or are given, much screen time to work with what they are given. It is nice to seem them back into character again and you can tell some of them (especially Harrison Ford) really are thrilled to be back into character. Even the new cast really do try, even if they are not amazing.
My problem with this movie is that it plays things very VERY safe. Despite some unexpected turns in the plot, it still feels like your average star wars movie, with Jedi, space-battles, action and the force. Everyone's complaints with this movie seem to stem from the plot feeling like a complete repeat of the previous original trilogy, which i wont argue with. The movie has plot-points that feel WAY to close to that of the originals. Trust me, I'm all for playing on nostalgia, its one way to market a movie and make it work, but it feels too close to the originals. This is something I hope that the sequels will move away from as the trilogy continues and concludes. People do need to calm down. Spamming IMDb with 1/10 ratings implies that it fails on almost every single level of filmmaking including the basics of how a film should be written, shot and directed. This movie like I said is well made but it's too familiar and doesn't break any new grounds in terms of story or progression. If the sequels don't fix this problem, I will start to like these movies less and less.....