Watch Battlestar Galactica Episode 1 "33" instead.

Rating: 1/10 (19 December 2017)

I've seen the plot before... only better. A ragtag bunch of ships fleeing from an enemy that pursues them relentlessly. They are being tracked and can't escape. Dogfights in space and several plans to escape the tracking. It's the episode "33" from Battlestar Galactica. Only they cut back on the fighters (why?), had them running out of fuel (why?) and had no interesting character arcs, development or tension.
The film begins with a single X-Wing stopping a fleet using jokes and relying on the first order holding the idiot ball. I first started screaming internally "deploy the TIE fighters!" and "Just shoot them!" at this point, I don't think I ever stopped mentally screaming that as scene after scene relied on the first order being useless idiots. TIE fighters are expendable, you have a numerical advantage... big ships struggle to shoot little ships so you always need a fighter escort and there is absolutely nothing stopping them throwing wave after wave of cheap fighters at the last enemy they have. *shudders*
The funny thing is that turned out to have been the best bit of the movie... I'm not sure how it managed to get worse from there but it did:
Rey is a Mary Sue character.... fine, easy to sum up in one clear description... but still abysmally poor writing with no character arc, weaknesses or development to make her even slightly interesting.
Snoke was incomplete, the outline of a character. Perhaps he'll be raised from the dead and fleshed-out, given a backstory and motivation so we can get a proper boss battle later rather than merely the evil speech.
Luke's legacy was thrown away as quickly as his lightsaber, his character torn to shreds as they make him into a murderous uncle.
Poe, Finn and Rose had a silly sub-plot and terrible case of poor communication kills after they ask "what's the plan" and are insulted in response. The concepts here sound good on paper - explore the corrupt and wealthy side of the galaxy, show the next generation of the rebellion growing up and being inspired. Ask the question, if we fund these arms merchants are we part of the problem? The execution is painfully bad and entirely detached from the main story.
Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (I had to look up her name) is one of the rebels holding the idiot ball. Her lack of communication kills the rebel plans and causes a mutiny and then she steals a death scene that would have been better fitting for either Leia's death number 2 or for the beloved Admiral Akbar.
Leia had a perfectly decent death scene... which they immediately and utterly ruined by reviving her and making her Mary Poppins/Deux Ex Machina her way back into the ship. Adding new powers when the plot demands it was the theme of the movie - Leia using the force to fly through space, Rey connecting with Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren evading Snoke's mental eavesdropping, Snoke creating a bridge between characters, Luke astral-projecting himself to other worlds, Luke dying from the astral projection. If Luke was going to die anyway why not just fly in his underwater X-Wing? It's survived a swamp before, you didn't need to make a new power here... or in any of these cases.
*shudders*
Talking about new powers we have to mention the worst sin of all... using ships to faster-than-light ram through other ships was the biggest, most idiotic thing I have ever seen. In one moment it introduces the largest error, logical inconsistency and idiotic plot hole of all time into the franchise. The clone wars involved Jedi, clones and robots... imagine how those battles would have gone if they could smash disposable crews into each other. Or perhaps picture the Death Star being destroyed easily by a single automated cargo ship. Who needs weapons, pilots, crews and shields when you can tele-frag an entire fleet with 1 ship? I actually like the idea that realism may one day enter sci-fi fantasy, I hope we will wonder about how to prevent lone terrorists with spaceships from using their drives to accelerate themselves or asteroids to relativistic speeds and cause mayhem... but that's not this film. In this film it's used as a deus ex machina that breaks the logic of the universe and ignores every other film.
I keep wanting to add more to the list of issues, I have to stop at some point but know that I have barely scratched the surface: They phone people while the plot involves them being unable to send a distress beacon, they send out lots of ships that the first order ignore/do not see despite them having super-advanced sensors (on all the ships! So they could even send one to follow them easily) that can even track through lightspace (a gravity well generator would have made more sense, that stops them jumping away entirely and is already part of the universe... but then they couldn't have had the stupid sub-plot either)
Anyway...
TL;DR Do not pay to watch this. Watch "33" from Battlestar Galactica if you want to experience a better version of the story. This film is riddled with plot holes, deus ex machinas, Mary Sue characters and generally bad writing.