Entertaining Movie But Has Many Problems

Rating: 3/10 (20 December 2017)

Finally went to see the film and had a huge feeling of disappointment. I expected to get some answers to questions from Force Awakens but don't get any - have to wait for the next movie, I guess - and that is aggravating. I felt I was actually watching a reboot of Empire Strikes Back - plot lines were so similar it made me wonder if the studio could not come up with an original script and story line so they just revamped the ESB script.
The good - acting is very good, special effects very good, action sequences done well.
The not-so-good - there are several so I don't want to bring them all up, but I got the feeling several times where i thought, "Why did that person just do that?" Or "Why didn't they do that a lot earlier?"
The bad - I am not convinced that Finn, Poe, and Rose can replace the original cast members moving forward. Their characters are not as interesting and some of their actions and/or abilities just don't make sense - nothing against the actors, only the characters. Especially Rose - a maintenance worker who can suddenly fly a ship at light speed and a speeder in an attack - huh? Don't you need a little bit of training to do that?
As a standalone film, it wasn't bad - mainly due to decent action and special effects. But considering it is a Star Wars franchise movie, it was very disappointing.