I watched a $7 matinee of this today and I’d rate it a matinee. See it on the big screen, but not worth a full price.
Lots of enjoyable moments, but as a whole it’s inconsistent.
JJ Abrahams setup a lot of big things in Force Awakens as it ends on a cliffhanger, promising to deliver in the next saga:
Rey’s parentage
Rey and Finn romance
Luke’s big role in all this
Snoke
Return of Phasma
Force Awakens is a remake of a New Hope? Be patient, the sequel will get into all the above stuff. Rianna Johnson doesn’t care about any of that as he has a very different idea for a narrative in this film.
The good?
Kylo Renn is a lot more fleshed out and interesting
Lots of good individual moments
The actors all shine in their roles.
Tries lots of new things, most people probably didn’t ask for
The bad
Way too long of a film when there wasn’t enough story to fill it. Finn’s casino planet story could have been cut out. Luke himself was good, but his story on the island didn’t need that much time
Without spoiling anything yet, just a lot of choices made in the film that made it inconsistent with Star Wars itself, not including the three movies in one that is this.
It’s enjoyable. Not a bad film at all. But they’re running out of ideas if this is what they have left. They didn’t even setup a reason for the sequel other than we need more Star Wars movies.
