I felt a great disturbance in The Force....

Rating: 4/10 (9 January 2016)

....as if millions of Star Wars fans suddenly cried out in terror....and demanded their money back.
I've been a die-hard SW fan since A New Hope blew me away when I was 12 years old. Even now I still have a fine collection of SW shirts, toys and memorabilia. (You do the math on my age, I'm not saying.) I was dreading what would happen to this franchise when George Lucas sold out to Disney, and my fears were confirmed. There are more detailed (and probably better written) reviews on this site that list all of this film's faults, so I won't repeat them here. But the clincher has to be the dreadful miscasting of the incoming characters. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are so Disneyesque and hammy, you'd think they just walked off the set of The Mickey Mouse Club. And it's hard to be scared of Kylo Ren, the new face of the Evil Empire, when the actor playing him could star in a remake of "Revenge of the Nerds" and needs a face- mask to produce a deep, threatening, British-accent-tinged voice.
As for the returning cast, I was just saddened. Harrison Ford was the only one who pulled off his character with ease, though his reunion with Leia was painfully saccharine and schmaltzy. Poor Carrie Fisher just looks sad and worn-out, a potentially great actress whose spark has gone out after years of alcoholism, substance abuse and voluntary EST. And the lynchpin character to the whole story, Luke Skywalker.well, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. I'd just like to suggest that Mark Hamill make fewer trips to the Craft Services wagon and hit the gym once in a while.
J.J. Abrams apparently got this gig because he's a "lifelong Star Wars fan". On that basis anyone reading this could have done the job, and probably more faithfully to the canon set in place by much better films, novels and Lucas himself. He trashed the memory of the Star Trek franchise (another of my favourites) for me, now he's set his sights on Star Wars. He should stick to producing/directing mediocre genre TV series and Mission Impossible instalments.
The whole piece isn't without its good bits, though. The SFX were impressive, especially the flight sequences. The CGI characters were well-done. The sets and costumes were rather good as well.
I was getting my hair done the other day and my hairdresser mentioned that she'd seen The Force Awakens, but had never seen any of the previous Star Wars films. She loved it, though she was a tad confused by references to previous chapters and the in-jokes. After listening to her experience of this film, I think that's how it should be viewed if one wants to truly enjoy it: with no knowledge or experience of the Star Wars universe. That way you can enjoy the new storyline and its few good qualities without walking out of the cinema feeling like you'd just taken it up the posterior courtesy of Mssrs. Lucas and Abrams.