Star Wars is back.........However??

Rating: 7/10 (5 September 2016)

Now being a huge Star Wars fan I was obviously excited to see how the sequel trilogy is going to pan out and what has happened in the thirty year gap between Return of the Jedi and the force awakens. Maybe being brought up as a child on the prequels might have been a blessing in disguise as I wasn't going to have my expectations too high but obviously better than the prequels. Now positives film the film, there are many of them however the main ones personally are characters and certain scenes that stand out. Daisy Ridley is fantastic what a talent that JJ Abrams found really good solid performance that was believable at all times. Next John Boyega again brilliant performance all around, solid accent all the way through and the story really made you feel for the guy. However the two stand out characters for me are Han Solo and Kylo Ren played by Harrison Ford and Adam Driver respectively. Both of these performances were just a step above the rest in the depth and complexities, Han with age and witt helped by brilliant writing from JJ and Lawrence Kasdan. I also would like to take a moment to compare Darth Vader from A New Hope and Kylo Ren from the Force Awakens. Kylo for me, just comparing them on there first films , is a much more interesting character with a history/background and is far more complex than just being a villain. The final positives for me are all the action scenes in the film are made fantastically and are a perfect blend of practical and CGI effects, also the cameo at the end by Luke is good but brief. Now onto the negatives...yes there are some. I personally have three major problems with the film. The first is the comparison to A New Hope, which for me personally there are too many of. I didn't mind early on a couple of nods to the earlier films but after a while it became boring and generally unimaginative. This links into my next negative Starkiller base, which is a bigger death star. The specific part I don't like is about the destruction of multiple planets, which is very weak. The reason it is weak is because the story never goes to those planets nor does it have anything to do with the characters apart from being the new republics centre. The final negative I have is involving the final lightsaber battle, specifically the miraculous recovery of Finn from a lightsaber cut straight up his spine, in my mind there is no way he should of survived. Also the sudden master jedi skill of Rey to partially defeat Kylo Ren, somebody who had been trained with the force and the dark side and is in his thirties. If there was more build up I wouldn't mind but considering thats the first time she picked up a lightsaber it just doesn't sit right. Finally this film is better than the prequels...phew, however I don't think it is as good as Empire but is about on par with Jedi, Episode 8 should be interesting lets just hope it doesn't follow Empires story line too much.