Review: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

***** SPOILER WARNING ***** Best save this review for after you’ve seen the film. I think most of you will have seen it by now, but if you haven’t you can save this for later, and even read one of the many spoiler-free reviews out there on the web if you’re mildly curious. With one exception that I’ll precede with another warning, I really only hint at spoiler-y stuff here, unless you count plot synopsis and basic character mentioning as spoilers. If so (and regardless of that), you’ve been duly warned. On to the review…

Set 30 years after “Return of the Jedi”, farm boy turned hero Jedi Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is nowhere to be seen, but is very much sought after by those on the side of good, but also evil. Evil here is represented by the First Order, led by the looming large Supreme Leader Snoke (A motion-captured Andy Serkis), whose number two is the black mask-clad Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who seems somewhat familiar, yet also distinctly his own. Also on the villain side of things is General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), supreme commander of the First Order (i.e. Including Storm Troopers) who tries to curry favour with the Supreme Leader, and the awesomely named Captain Phasma (“Game of Thrones” actress Gwendoline Christie), a Stormtrooper captain. Representing the Resistance here is top fighter pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), who has a map that might lead to the whereabouts of Luke, but runs into some trouble before he return to his base. He is captured by the First Order and about to be tortured by Kylo Ren, when a rogue Storm Trooper surprisingly comes to Poe’s rescue. Although Storm Troopers are designed to forget their pasts and not assigned real names, Poe dubs him Finn (John Boyega), and it appears Finn doesn’t quite have the stomach for being on the Dark Side of the Force. He doesn’t reveal himself as a Storm Trooper, however, claiming instead to be a member of the Resistance. They will soon be joined by feisty young scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley), who has come across a droid Poe is looking for (see what I did there?) dubbed BB-8. And that’s where I’m gonna leave the plot, folks. Yayan Ruhian and Iko Uwais play members of an unfriendly gang known as the Kanjiklub, Lupita Nyong’o can be heard as Maz, one of the better CG creatures in the film, and Max von Sydow has a virtual walk-on as Lor San Tekka, a resident of the planet Jakku, who has a piece of the map to give Poe.

As I sit here to write this review, having watched this 2015 J.J. Abrams film beginning the new life in the “Star Wars” series, just yesterday midday-ish. Subsequent viewings over the next year or two will probably solidify my views more, as well as help to define this film’s place in my heart (and probable place in my Top 200 films of all-time list, possibly with bad news for the prequels currently still on the list. Not sure yet. Stay tuned), but the short, short version is this: I liked this film. Quite a lot. But please stay and read the rest of the review…aw, you’ll hurt my feelings otherwise.

My first impression of the film is that it’s very ‘fan friendly’ entertainment, and although that has a few drawbacks, on the main it proves a positive thing as far as I’m concerned. This is probably the best “Star Wars” film you could hope for in 2015, all things considered, and although I enjoyed the prequels much more than most did, I can’t deny that this film has several strengths over at least “Episode II” and “Episode III”. First and foremost, it obviously has the original trio of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and however incredibly briefly Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, looking like a skinnier Oliver Reed in “Gladiator”). The former two actors are in very good form here, performance-wise, and play very believable old-age versions of the characters I grew up with and loved dearly. Although I think it’s best to view any of these new “Star Wars” films as being geared towards today’s generation, there’s no doubt in my mind that it was a masterstroke by J.J. Abrams (director of “Star Trek”, “Star Trek Into Darkness”, “Mission Impossible III”) and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan (writer-director of “Body Heat”, more importantly the screenwriter of “The Empire Strikes Back”) to bring these iconic characters back so that we can see what time has done to them, and see what their place in the “Star Wars” universe is now all these years later. It’s fascinating stuff, and I’ve got to say, every time Han Solo and Leia (I can’t even refer to them by the actors names, despite seeing Harrison Ford in movies all the damn time. He puts on the clothes and…like magic, he’s Han Solo again!) turned up on screen, I had a lump in my throat and felt on the verge of tears. Yes, even during all the action, mayhem and fun, I couldn’t help but feel…something. Nostalgia is certainly a big part of it, but it’s more than that. A deep connection to the characters, and as I said, we’re seeing what they’ve become, and it really kinda got to me. I’m not sure how this aspect is going to fare on subsequent viewings, but on my first go round, it’s the thing that most stuck out to me in a positive way. Ford in particular, is in great form, I haven’t seen him this much fun to watch in decades.

The performances overall are probably better than the prequels too (And yes, I’m probably going to be doing a lot of comparisons. It’s called baggage, people!). Yes, the prequels had terrific work by Christopher Lee, Ian McDiarmid, and solid stints by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor, but Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, and a lot of the minor character players were less impressive, and somewhat stilted (not helped by some pretty rank dialogue, the main criticism I have with the prequels- which I still love, by the way, credibility be damned!). I wasn’t overly fussed with Daisy Ridley, I must say. I’d never heard of her before, but on evidence here she’s a bit stiff and I hope she can improve her thesping skills between now and the next one. She’s a bit bland. I was also bitterly disappointed that Iko Uwais and the awesome Yayan Ruhian from “The Raid” were utterly wasted and ‘jobbed out’ in mere cameos near the beginning. I honestly couldn’t believe Abrams wasted the opportunity for some kick-arse martial arts action, I was really looking forward to it. Instead they carry guns and run a bit. Yep. However, pretty much everyone else impresses here, even if the mere cameo by the great Max von Sydow seems a crying shame, and evidence of a film that was originally likely a whole lot longer. I was particularly impressed by John Boyega and rather surprisingly for me, Adam Driver. As the conflicted, ultimately good-hearted storm trooper Finn, Boyega is charismatic and genuinely likeable on screen. He’s much better company than Ridley’s Rey. The normally goofball Driver seemed like oddball casting to me in the villainous role of Darth Vader fanboy Kylo Ren, and although he’s actually much creepier without the mask, I’ve gotta say he’s quite intimidating and a pretty interesting, layered villain. Some will say that he’s ultimately not very formidable, but I think that’s a bit unfair, all things considered. You’ve got to remember that like Daisy Ridley’s Rey, he’s fairly youthful, and although the First Order are ruling the galaxy, perhaps he’s not quite at his peak power yet. Not every villain has to be Darth Vader or The Emperor, and perhaps The First Order will get to that level by the end of the next entry. ***** DEFINITE SPOILERS HERE ***** Although Kylo Ren looks somewhat done for, I think he’ll be back, and part of the reason why he seems not quite Darth Vader-ish in power is because…well, he’s not. I think because this film is somewhat reboot-ish of the entire franchise, it’s basically giving us a Darth Vader wannabe who at this point in time, is closer to Anakin in “Attack of the Clones” or “Revenge of the Sith”, in pretty much every respect. If Kylo Ren returns, and I believe he will, there will be absolutely no trace of humanity left in him, probably not even any physical trace, either. Giving us more Anakin-like Kylo Ren rather than Darth Vader-inspired Kylo Ren is Abrams’ new spin on an old template. It’s “A New Hope” for a new generation (That does not make this a kids movie, by the way. That’s not the same thing). That same re-boot quality also helps explain why Rey seems so much more advanced in her skills than Luke was in “A New Hope”. Yes, she’s probably going to receive training in the next film, but as this isn’t the same “Star Wars” as before, perhaps after her training she’ll become even more powerful/skilled than Luke ever was. Who knows? I’m willing to wait and see. It really didn’t bother me, folks. I do, however, think Abrams and his co-writers over-egged things a bit by giving Kylo Ren too much connection to characters from the original trilogy. It is a slightly regrettable trend throughout the film (not to mention that the plot quite resembles “A New Hope” at times as well) that also affects the Rey character too, and I hope they don’t go on with it as much in subsequent films. ***** END SPOILER *****

In smaller turns, Oscar Isaac is an actor I’ve come to very much like, and although his appearances in this are sporadic, I hope he’s in subsequent films because I think you can always use a genuinely talented actor like him in something like this. I feel like we only get the tip of the iceberg with him here, so I hope he’s in the next one. Domhnall Gleeson will divide audiences for sure, as the sneering Grand Moff Tarkin-esque General Hux. He’s completely over-the-top, giving a real hambone special, and at least on first viewing, I enjoyed him a lot. Although I find her performance a bit Monty Python-esque on “Game of Thrones”, Gwendoline Christie’s voice definitely fits her rather chilling character in this film, I guess her character is kind of a Boba Fett-ish character (See what I did there, by the way? Yeah, proud of that one) in some ways. Like with Isaac’s Poe Dameron, I want to see more from Christie’s Captain Phasma (And see more of Ms. Christie’s actual face next time, perhaps?).

I wasn’t really able to focus on the turn given by the normally excellent Andy Serkis as the really humongously huge-looking Supreme Leader Snoke, to be honest. I was far too distracted by the rather unnecessary and not entirely convincing FX job. It’s a shame, because although I actually didn’t think Serkis was particularly memorable in the part, the Emperor-esque character does have some potential. I just hope they do something about the FX next time around, because I wasn’t quite buying it. I know we were seeing a hologram, but it was still a motion-capture CGI job, and not a great one. Also, why motion-capture someone who doesn’t really move much? Da Fuq? Speaking of FX, for the most part it’s actually one of the film’s strengths. It’s a seriously good-looking film that thankfully doesn’t overdose on 1) CGI, or 2) Abrams’ masturbatory fascination with lens flares. Hell, I don’t think I noticed more than one. The CGI in the film is frankly not all that great, but for the most part Abrams has stuck to ‘real’ sets, and makeup instead of computer FX, and the film is very, very much the better for it. Honestly, I found myself at times less focussing on the actors and looking at the scenery or sets and marvelling at the fact that they looked real, like you could actually touch them. That’s not a thing I should have been marvelling at, if you ask me, but we’re way down that rabbit hole of CGI everything now, so a break from ‘tradition’ to an earlier ‘tradition’ made me very happy. As much as I liked the CGI worlds George Lucas created in the prequels (they certainly wowed me at the time), I feel like he felt the need for everything to be CGI, and just as is the case in this film, the inclusion CGI characters in the prequels was not the strong point of those films at all. Having said that, I wasn’t actually entirely enamoured with the droids in this film, despite them not being CGI. I always enjoy C3PO for the most part, but for some reason, having him and R2D2 in this one just rubbed me a bit the wrong way here, they felt unnecessary, maybe even unlikely. It’s always nice to see old friends (I loved seeing Chewbacca, and he’s in it a bit more than you’ve probably heard), but are you telling me droids haven’t advanced by this point? As for the new droid BB-8, he stops short of being Jar-Jar Binks or General Grievous levels of irritation (I especially hated the latter), but such a kid-friendly inclusion seemed a little jarring in what is, although great fun, a relatively dark story. I dunno, I might change my mind on him one day. I just wasn’t overly impressed on first go-round. What I did like, however, was that the film has a whole lot of action, and it isn’t to the detriment of story, really. All of the space battles are particularly top-notch, though some of the light saber duels for me suffered from some slightly under-lit photography by Dan Mindel (“Star Trek Into Darkness”, “The Amazing Spider Man 2”), which is a shame. But on the whole, if it’s typical “Star Wars” action you’re after, you’re gonna get your fill here. I will say, though, that particularly in the first half there was a bit too much repetition in the action. Is it me or was there maybe one too many scenes where characters had to run to a spaceship and get the hell outta Dodge? It certainly seemed that way to me, exciting as it was. Speaking of repetitive, although the music score by John Williams (whose non-“Star Wars” work includes such great films as “Superman”, “Jaws”, and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”) is solid, that’s mostly because it sounds so goddamn familiar. It really does play like “Star Wars Soundtrack: Greatest Hits”, with just a few subtle tweaks. That’s fine, the music is good, it suits the action (although one revelatory moment that is already predictable, damn well gets underscored by Williams employing a particular music cue, which is a bit of a shame, albeit understandably irresistible), it’s just a bit too familiar and ultimately you won’t really be humming it afterwards. Even the scores for the prequels were better, perhaps the only thing the prequels have over this film, aside from the late Christopher Lee obviously not being here.

On a not-remotely-serious note, I thought it was a real oversight not to play ‘The Imperial March’ over the LucasFilm trademark at the start of the film. Yeah, fuck you George. Still not forgiving you for “The Clone Wars” movie or adding ‘Noooooo!’ to “Return of the Jedi”. I also kinda wish Abrams had found a way to bring Greedo’s grandson into the film so he can walk on and Han just blasts the shit out of him. Yeah, that one’s aimed at you too, George (We owe everything to George with this franchise, undoubtedly, but c’mon, the guy asks for it with his stubbornness sometimes).

On first viewing, I felt that this film definitely had more flaws than the original trilogy, and I wasn’t always as on side with the film as I would’ve liked to have been, especially early on as it was finding its feet. However, make no mistake: This is good. Very, good. In time and with subsequent viewings I may grow even fonder of it, and if this is to be to the younger generation what the original trilogy has been for my generation (and backwards), it’s worthy. Although it is a little too reliant on old tropes for my liking, it is nonetheless clearly a film made with genuine love and affection for both the original trilogy and its characters, but also the fans. Yes, George, those people you like to pretend don’t fucking matter (I should also play fair and add my distaste for the flippancy with which J.J. Abrams has treated previous “Star Trek” lore, particularly in his first “Trek” film where he callously seemed to want to wipe the slate clean. He’s clearly a “Star Wars” guy).

Although I would argue that it is primarily aimed at today’s youth, there’s enough connective material here to truly invest the fans of the original trilogy. Revisiting this world, revisiting some old characters, meeting some new ones, having fun and thrills and all that good stuff…it felt like home. Maybe home has changed a bit, but it’s still there, you can see it throughout, and damn if I didn’t get a little misty-eyed at times. Whether that nostalgia stays on subsequent viewings or subsequent films I cannot yet say (nor am I yet 100% certain where I would place it in the best-to-worst of “Star Wars” films. That’ll take some reflection), but I am thankful that there’s still the fun and adventure aspect anyway. It’s not quite my “Star Wars”, but I nonetheless embrace it as the probable next best thing we’re likely to get as the franchise moves from my generation to the next. The rating I’m assigning the film today may not be permanent, it might improve on subsequent viewings, so please don’t make too much of that at this stage. I saw the film just under 24 hours ago as I write this.

NB: It should be noted that Michael Arndt (“Little Miss Sunshine”, “Toy Story 3”) gets co-screenwriter credit with the director and Kasdan, however, his contribution was apparently meant for a project abandoned by George Lucas, and thus Abrams scrapped it. Why he still remains credit, seems bizarre to me, under those circumstances.

Rating: A-