SPOILER....it's not very good, even with all the one-liners and box-checking callbacks to the original series. However...I can't deny that John Boyega does an excellent job as the "everyman" character and would make the most ideal replacement for Jar Jar Binks in Episodes 1-3 Super Final Special Edition.
The First Order actors are all comically young, comically British, and act comically badly, as though JJ Abrams said to himself: "Benedict Cumberbatch is a popular actor who brought me lots of money in my last Star Trek movie, but I can hire lots of people who look and sound like him just by pulling people from the Eton freshman theater class!" Sadly, acting is a actual skill honed by actual experience, and his money-saving dodge shows through painfully. No one on the Imperial side is properly intimidating, regal, or watchable for more than a few seconds.
Ditto for most of the rebel pilots.
The dialogue is good if more suited to a Firefly episode, but JJ Abrams isn't really a visually competent director for any scene that isn't CG spectacle, and when he has to have two characters face each other down, it usually ends up turns into a hilarious grimace-off than anything that might be iconic.
Not even John Williams is bringing his A game, unless a whole bunch of his best work was cut and we have to blame the editor rather than the musician for so little musical impact.
All actors are either too old or too young for their dialogue/in-universe relationships to be believable. "The senile leading the puerile" seems to be the watchword for most of the scenes.
Verdict: Two and a half stars at best. It may sate Official Canon Star Wars hunger but isn't likely to rope in a younger generation raised on, say, Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a much better Star Wars-y movie and has much more memorable characters that work better together. Possibly it's just because everyone was trying very hard not to be Episode 1-3 bad, but that really isn't enough.
The First Order actors are all comically young, comically British, and act comically badly, as though JJ Abrams said to himself: "Benedict Cumberbatch is a popular actor who brought me lots of money in my last Star Trek movie, but I can hire lots of people who look and sound like him just by pulling people from the Eton freshman theater class!" Sadly, acting is a actual skill honed by actual experience, and his money-saving dodge shows through painfully. No one on the Imperial side is properly intimidating, regal, or watchable for more than a few seconds.
Ditto for most of the rebel pilots.
The dialogue is good if more suited to a Firefly episode, but JJ Abrams isn't really a visually competent director for any scene that isn't CG spectacle, and when he has to have two characters face each other down, it usually ends up turns into a hilarious grimace-off than anything that might be iconic.
Not even John Williams is bringing his A game, unless a whole bunch of his best work was cut and we have to blame the editor rather than the musician for so little musical impact.
All actors are either too old or too young for their dialogue/in-universe relationships to be believable. "The senile leading the puerile" seems to be the watchword for most of the scenes.
Verdict: Two and a half stars at best. It may sate Official Canon Star Wars hunger but isn't likely to rope in a younger generation raised on, say, Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a much better Star Wars-y movie and has much more memorable characters that work better together. Possibly it's just because everyone was trying very hard not to be Episode 1-3 bad, but that really isn't enough.
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