Feminists will be proud for all the right reasons

Rating: 10/10 (16 December 2015)

This is Star Wars as it was meant to be and one feminists will be proud of for all the right reasons. Harrison Ford, reprising his role as Han Solo is on screen more than anyone would have expected. He is commanding, fully invested in his role and delightful as always to watch. But it's the new comers who well and truly stamp their mark on this film.
John Boyega (Finn) is a real find and fits the bill perfectly, sharing the screen with Daisy Ridley (Rey), together they are mesmerizing but for entirely different reasons. Whilst Finn is a delightfully funny, refreshing and surprisingly interesting character, it is Rey who steals the show. Ridley's character is one part girl and two parts heroine and whilst she dominates the story, the fact she is a young woman is never lost on the audience. Her emotional range, her ability to convincingly project her inner righteous rage and her physical actions combine to make for the preeminent female hero. Feminists will be proud and this time for all the right reasons. That she maintains the innocence through all her heroism is a testament not only to Ridley's ability to completely divest herself of inhibitions, but to the incredible talent of J J Abrams, who skillfully enables her to take the character on completely. She is the modern female hero, devoid of stereotypes, completely normal to look at, but exciting to watch. I love it when directors like Abrams and Spielberg take comparatively little known actors and make them instant household names.
As far as Star Wars: The Force Awakens is concerned, the fact it is every bit the Star Wars film we have long waited for, takes second place to it managing to honor the past, whilst pushing the franchise in a new direction. Of course, the limitations of the Star Wars universe are quite obvious, but Abrams has proved himself to be to this generation what Spielberg was (and still is) to the previous generation. He masterfully and confidently throws himself at this film with restrained abandon.
At the cinema I was surrounded by young people who never saw the original series on the big screen way back in the seventies and eighties, but listening to their conversations both before and after the midnight screening, I was amazed by their commitment to Star Wars and their knowledge about it. But being the original fan boy, I could not resist reminding them that I was there when Star Wars: A New Hope premiered to astonished audiences worldwide. They looked at me with a mix of awe, tinged with a hint of embarrassment.
I loved this film as much or perhaps more than the original. Not because the original was not as good, but because of the emotions, the sentimentality and not the least because I was, once again, the young man with wide eyes who became a fan the moment the rolling text appeared in 1977.
This is popcorn cinema at its finest and one to remember for a very long time.