#Star wars the force awakens bad review movie
#Star wars the force awakens bad review series

Particularly responsible are the four young actors who embody the next generation of Star Wars. No, it's the return of some firmly grounded humanity, an intangible but satisfying soul that permeated the original films and which was replaced by clinical zeroes and ones in the most recent films.

What makes The Force Awakens work isn't just the frequent nods to the original trilogy, the sweeping orchestral score from composer John Williams, nor the breathtaking visual effects from ILM. Bolstered by the re-appearance of Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie and Darth Vader (albeit in the visage of a post-funeral pyre charred helmet), an emphasis on analog visual effects (Real sets! Rubber suits!), more dramatic storytelling (the thankful absence of tax disputes and political shenanigans), not to mention a keen awareness of what fans actually want to see, I'm pleased to report that J.J. Plaudits, too, to John Boyega, who brings credibility and humour to the almost accidentally heroic role of Finn.While expectations are sky high for the relaunched Star Wars saga, the benchmark for success has undoubtedly been dramatically lowered by the standard set by its prequel forebears.

#Star wars the force awakens bad review series

The spectre of Vader may live on in Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, but it’s Rey in whom the film’s true force resides, likable newcomer Daisy Ridley channelling Carrie Fisher’s Leia and carrying the heavily-mantled weight of the new series with aplomb. Having co-written the series’s previous high-water mark, The Empire Strikes Back, Lawrence Kasdan here shares credits with Abrams and Michael Arndt on a screenplay that is steeped in the dark lineages of the originals (and does not sidestep moments of genuine tragedy), but which subtly realigns its gender dynamics with Rey’s proudly punchy, post- Hunger Games heroine. (The jokes were a surprise, too, provoking the kind of laughter many comedies fail to muster.) Elsewhere, the sand dune landscapes have a touch of Lawrence of Arabia majesty, vindicating Abrams’s long-standing dedication to shooting on film rather than digital, cinematographer Dan Mindel augmenting the 35mm stock with some lush 65mm Imax footage. The battle scenes are breathtakingly immersive (I saw the film in 2D Imax and felt no need for stereoscopy), but also impressively joyous – the sight of a fleet of X-wings hurtling toward us over watery terrain brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye – just one of several occasions when I found myself welling up with unexpected emotion. As always with this director, the film feels very physical, scenes of dog-fighting TIE fighters and a relaunched Millennium Falcon crashing through trees possessing the kind of heft so sorely lacking from George Lucas’s over-digitised prequels. That sense of coming home runs throughout The Force Awakens, director JJ Abrams working the same regenerative miracle with the Star Wars franchise that he previously pulled off with his Star Trek movies – taking the series back to its roots while giving it a rocket-fuelled, 21st-century twist. The Guardian film show special: Star Wars: The Force Awakens – video review Guardian The opening scroll sets up an ongoing battle between the forces of good and evil and lays the groundwork for a quasi-mythical quest that will reunite friends old and new, and allow a grizzled Harrison Ford to deliver the line that turned the teaser trailers into something akin to an announcement of the second coming: “ Chewie, we’re home…” Suffice to say that the action takes place some years after the events of Return of the Jedi, and involves scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) teaming up with renegade “First Order” Stormtrooper Finn ( John Boyega) and globular droid BB-8.

#Star wars the force awakens bad review movie

With a film whose existence is rooted in fan culture, describing the movie is perilous even revealing the cast list runs the risk of providing potential plot spoilers. Ironic, then, that watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I found myself feeling like a 12-year-old, reading for the first time the words: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, hearing John Williams’s fanfare theme and discovering what all the fuss was about. Now, as Episode VII rolls around, ushering in a new generation of sequels, I find myself at an age so out of whack with the film’s target demographic that what I think about it matters not a jot.