Fun, thrilling, and epic; a bold new reintroduction to Star Wars

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2016)

WARNING CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS!
The Force Awakens is quite possibly the most anticipated movie of all time, and I was one of the many who was really looking forward to it. And this movie was a lot of what I wanted from a new Star Wars movie. There are new characters, who happen to be the main characters. I know a lot of people didn't like all the throwbacks (more on that later) but I still think this movie introduced a great new style for Star Wars movies. It had a lot of similarities to the originals, but it had a separate style from both the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.
So the first thing I want to complement on is the characters. Rey is a great protagonist. She's likable, relatable, and she is well developed. We get to know her gradually over the movie, and we learn more and more about her. People have pointed out that her transformation into a Jedi at the end of the movie was a little sudden, and I suppose that's true, but I think it was better than making us wait until episode eight to see a Jedi again. But as much as I liked Rey, there was one character who outshone every character to one degree or another. And that was Kylo Ren. Saying Kylo is the next Darth Vader wouldn't really be accurate, because what's so great about Kylo is that he wasn't written as a villain. Vader was always written as a villain, even though he was redeemed. Kylo was just a character, who had just as many deft touches to his personality as any other character would. It's something to see a villain who doesn't have to be written as always calm, collected, and control of everything. You can tell he has to try and act menacing, because on the inside he's just a scared kid. Like a lot of people who are usually protagonists, he idolizes someone and wants to live up to them, the only thing is his role model is Darth Vader. Another interesting thing about him was how he was a dark reflection of Anakin. Anakin started out as a good person who was trying to resist the Dark Side, whereas Kylo is basically a bad person who is trying to resist the light side. When he (SPOILER ALERT) kills Han Solo, it's really quite sad, and a lot more effective than Obi-Wan's or Qui-Gon's death. We'd gotten to know and love Han ever since A New Hope, and he was at or near the top of nearly every best Star Wars character lists. Finn was another good character, who was very different from other Star Wars characters, and was the first attempt made to humanize the soldiers of any side in a Star Wars movie. He had some legitimately funny lines, and managed to be a funny character who actually mattered. And even though Poe wasn't in the movie that much, I still think there's some potential for a good character there.
I also think that The Force Awakens is the high point of acting of any Star Wars movie ever made. Even in the original trilogy, a lot of people gave kind of stiff performances, or would just come off as overblown and cheesy (like all the times someone screams 'noooooo!'), I'm not trying to disparage the previous six, but the acting wasn't nearly as good as it was here. Rey, Kylo, Finn, Poe, Han, Leia, and all the other characters felt believable and relatable. Harrison Ford gave a very good performance here, especially since he had to display a wide range of emotions.
Another high point for this movie was the special effects, because they looked very convincing. I was admiring the effects when TIE fighters were blowing up in the space battle, but it was always story driven, it wasn't just like 'hey, look at those great effects!' In the original trilogy, the effects aren't convincing anymore because they were limited by the time, and in the prequels, as much as I like those effects, they still don't look real. Here, they seemed like a nice blend of CGI and practical effects, and it looked great.
So to address the common complaint against this movie (that it's too much of a retread of A New Hope) isn't entirely unwarranted. It does revisit a lot of old plot points (Starkiller station/The Death Star and its destruction, the old mentor type guy is killed, the protagonist is stranded on a backwater planet at the start, etc.), but I still say that it was handled well. It was a nice bit of fan service, and most of those retreads were it was handled well. It was a nice bit of fan service, and most of those 'retreads' were shown in a different way (such as taking a poke at StarKiller Station's weak spot being so obvious) and Han's death was much more sudden and shocking than Obi-Wan's. A lot of this is due to J.J. Abrams' style of directing; who I think was an excellent choice for director. I don't know how I would rank this in comparison with the other Star Wars movies, but it would definitely be up there.