Meh

Rating: 5/10 (20 December 2015)

After all the hype, I left underwhelmed. I'm not sure how we got from Return of the Jedi to where Episode VII takes up, it doesn't make a lot of sense and it's not explained.
The character development for the new roles is extremely weak. The new villain doesn't have the Darth Vader or even Anakin vibe, and the new heroes lack the charisma of the old bunch. The limited roles of C3PO and R2D2 are especially glaring and disappointing. Lucas had said that the whole shebang was meant to be seen from their eyes, this movie is a major departure from that and they are missed. C3PO does still manage to steal each scene he is in, and he runs away with it.
This movie is very heavy on nostalgia, it in fact suffocates on nostalgia. I don't know where the series is going to go from here, and frankly there's little reason to care. The new characters aren't compelling enough to merit much consideration, frankly. We have Kylo Ren as a poor Vader, Rey and Finn who are cookie cutter heroes you wind up not invested in, and BB8 who entirely lacks the charisma of the original droids.
Not a total disaster of a movie, but this is not a classic. It has the feel of a phoned-in placeholder.