A force revitalized (or at least, replicated!)

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2019)

At last, after the unedining tedium of George Lucas's portentious prequels, J.J. Abrams gives us a new Star Wars film we can like, aided by Lawrence Kasdan, the screenwriter of 'The Empire Strikes Back'. 'The Force Awakens' is a fast-paced space-romp in the spirit of, and paying considerable homage to, the original movies, brining back many of our favourite characters while also introducing new ones (with a nod to modern political sensitivities). Perhaps its biggest problem is where it goes so far beyond simple homage so in places you could almost believe it was an alternative treatment for the script of 'A New Hope'. Of the new cast, I thought John Boyega seemed the most natural; the old cast do come across as old (but then, it was almost 40 years between the movies). The movies takes a bit of a while to find its rhythmn, and Kylo Ren, the conflicted villain, is interesting but not wholly convincing (although arguably Darth Vader had problems of his own). But it's fun, respectful, contains at least some new stuff and is arguably what the world was waiting to see when Lucas gave us 'The Phantom Menace' instead. Ah, well.