Not the joy I was looking for.

Rating: 7/10 (22 December 2015)

I have a bad feeling about this. That's what I was thinking as I entered the cinema to watch The Force Awakens.
See what I did there? And when I came out I had the same feeling. Not that the film was bad, as such - it was just my feelings. I searched them, you see. I knew it to be true. See what I did there – again? Therein lies the problem that leaves me with this err.. badness of feeling: the slavish devotion that suffocated the narrative like a Vaderian(?) force choke.
Speaking of the great man, he's a good place to start. Kylo Ren is just a watered-down version of him: misguided devotee of the Sith - check; struggling with his good side - check; working for an evil master who enjoys projecting himself by hologram - check; a hologram who is basically just like the Emperor - check. On and on it goes: BB8 is a poor man's R2D2; General Hux is a poor man's Moff Tarkin; The First Order is a poor man's Galactic Empire; Starkiller Base is a poor man's Death Star, but, you know, bigger. Because bigger is better.
And then there's the plot itself. The first half-hour brazenly mines the core story elements of A New Hope: droid escapes Stormtroopers with crucial data – check; young hero on desert planet discovers droid – check; escapes planet with droid on Millennium Falcon - check.
This sad devotion to the ancient religion of the original trilogy does not conjure up the stolen revelatory joy of my youth or give the franchise clairvoyance enough to find the narrative's hidden fort-..
~gulp~
~gasp~
~choke~