Hackneyed Plot Ruins Much Anticipated Movie

Rating: 5/10 (2 January 2016)

If you are a Star Wars devotee, I anticipate that you will wish to skip this review.
Conversely, if you are someone who wants to read a review devoid of gratuitous praise, please read on.
I must first state that I wanted to enjoy this movie. However, an overwhelming sense of déjà vu (no, not nostalgia) prevented me from immersing myself in the experience. Sadly, the plot of this movie was hastily cobbled together from the original trilogy. For example, the climax of 'The Force Awakens' occurs when yet another death star is destroyed (granted, this one comes with a picturesque, wintry landscape that would make even Austria envious – I believe this was done so that the new villain, Kylo Ren, can work on his snowboarding skills. While this is conjecture, it is the only plausible reason to explain why this death star has been made to look like the idyllic picture on the front of a package of hot chocolate). Moreover, after thirty years, haven't the bad guys learned their lesson? Why have they not refrained from making planetoids with conveniently placed orifices that allow penetration by the X-wing Starfighters each and every time? In addition, this new contraption has the ability to drain the energy from a star until it disappears, which in and of itself is devastating. Indeed, if our sun were to wink out of existence, we would not know about it for approximately 8 & ½ minutes before, cloaked in a mantle of eternal darkness, we sailed off into oblivion. Thus, it is not necessary to pulverize a planet when it, too, would suffer a similar fate after its parent star was snuffed out. But what is eternal darkness when compared to the razzle-dazzle of Hollywood special effects and light shows (although, truth be told, watching a red line meander across the screen is not that exciting – but that's probably just me). Imagine, for a moment, a scene that showed the look of horror on the faces of the citizens on the daylight side of the planet as light from the sun vanished, and, on the night side of the planet, light from a moon suddenly winks out while familiar stars in the sky (light reflected from other planets in the system) also faded from view. This could have been used to great effect.
Setting aside the hackneyed plot, I must express my disappointment with the casting of the new generation of Star Wars actors. Rey (Daisy Ridley), the new Luke Skywalker (another hero from a desert environment who is filled to the brim with the force and just waiting for the right mentorship) wears a constant expression on her face that can only be described as "I'm running late for my Pilates class!" It was a static performance, and there was nothing beyond her humble circumstances that encouraged me to sympathize with her. Next, I was unnerved watching an unmasked Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), in yet another bridge scene, because it clearly looked like he had been cast in a biopic about Frédéric Chopin and had stumbled onto the Star Wars set by mistake. I fear that Finn (John Boyega) was out of his depth because his demeanor came across like a tourist visiting a 'Stars Wars Adventure' at theme park that includes standing in front of a green screen and acting out a two-minute scene. As his involvement required much more than two minutes, his self-consciousness became uncomfortably apparent. Two important exceptions were the new droid, BB-8, which fit nicely into the Star Wars universe (Abrams is to be commended for not letting this character upstage its human counterparts) and Maz Kanata, who was voiced by Lupita Nyong'o – this character brought much needed freshness to the storyline and was a true respite from the tired, recycled material foisted on the audience for most of the movie. The writers also made the cardinal sin of assuming a relationship between the new characters that the audience is not allowed to see develop. For instance, Finn and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) meet briefly before stealing a Twin Ion Spaceship and crash landing on the planet Jakku where they immediately lose track of one another. When the two characters meet up later in the movie for the "let's destroy the death star" scene, Poe greets Finn like a long-lost brother, which strains credulity given that they have only just met and spent mere minutes together before being separated.
While it was gratifying to see the veterans again, with the exception of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), their appearance was both obligatory and forced. Gone was the Leia/Solo banter that made the original movies so charming. C3POs brief cameo, with a red arm, was as baffling as it was unnecessary.
I believe that all of the positive buzz may be chalked up to another instance of the 'Emperor's New Clothing'. Consider that it was not the gullibility or the naiveté of the people of the fable that made them overlook a man who was naked; rather, it was how much they had invested in this man based on an underlying belief that he could only be dressed in the kingdom's finest garments. Similarly, devotees of the Star Wars franchise so desperately want to believe that a top notch movie has been produced that its palpable shortcomings have been knowingly overlooked. I do not regret seeing the movie; I do regret donating more money to the Walt Disney Company for a movie that contained very little original or engaging material.