Movie Review: Star Wars – The Force Awakens (2015)

Title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Director: J. J Abrams
Starring: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega

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Review: Ah… Star Wars. The long awaited next instalment of what is arguably the biggest and most popular franchise ever to grace our planet (I can almost hear the faint sound of millions of Harry Potter fans whipping their wands out to avada kadavra my arse right now). In The Force Awakens, 30 years after the Galactic Empire is destroyed, Luke Skywalker is in hiding. Rey, a scavenger from the planet Jakku finds a small droid which holds a vital part of the map which shows where Luke is. A new threat is upon the galaxy, Kylo Ren, who also wants to find Luke but to destroy him. Rey teams up with some new and old faces to join the resistance and help find Luke – with an interesting journey of her own along the way.

This post is about to get reaaaaal fan girly but I can honestly say I loved every freaking minute of The Force Awakens from beginning to end. Heck, it’s not without it’s problems (which I’ll get to later) but as Star Wars go, I think they did a bloody fantastic job of reigniting such a iconic story and bringing some very well loved characters and a lot of fantastic new characters into our geeky little lives. I’ll try my very hardest to get through this review without giving away spoilers but if I do… Quite frankly it’s your own fault for not seeing it sooner. Like, seriously, go see it.

Anyway, as a cinematic experience goes, this one was pretty rad. The film starts with some fantastic scenes of the storm troopers embarking on another deadly mission and from then I knew the cinematography in this film was going to be pretty spectacular. Nothing less than what you’d obviously expect from Star Wars. I felt the excitement literally bubble up inside me. I’d read up a little about the story and the characters before seeing the film but I wasn’t quite prepared for the depth and likeliness of all the new characters brought into the franchise.

Rey – our heroine is oh such a breath of fresh air. I love, love, loved her – so much sass! She was so likeable and so easy to care about and root for. For such a massive film and a massive franchise, any new characters being brought in I can imagine was going to be a bit hit and miss for the crazy ass fans but as well as Rey, I think all the new characters were fantastic. Rey, Finn and BB-8 made such a funny little trio. In general, I did find The Force Awakens really funny – much more like the original 3 Star Wars movies, I thought the humour was spot on.

Now… Onto our villain – Kylo Ren. I’m sure everyone on the planet – Star Wars fan or not – has heard of that name by now and damn right as well. For me, he was without a doubt the scariest and most intimidating Star Wars villain – even more so than Vader. Yes, I went there. Oh he was just brilliant – Adam Driver did such an amazing job with him and I was somehow terrified but completely mesmerized by Kylo Ren. I can’t wait to hear more about his story and what the hell happened to make him how he is.

The reintroduction of the old characters – Han Solo, Leia, C3-PO and the rest – honestly made me really emotional. I loved particularly how despite the dramatic age difference, Harrison Ford ensured than Han had not changed at all. He still had all the likeability, charm and wit that the character always had which was beautiful considering everything than had happened to him (which I won’t say for the fear someone will shout at me). It was kinda like the old gang back together and the feels from the original Star Wars came right back. It’s so clear that this cast had and still have such a special bond.

Now, I said at the beginning that I did have some problems with it – not many but I still wanted to mention them. I loved that Kylo Ren took his mask off at some point during the film. I love that we know what he look like and if anything, I think that makes him even more intimidating – knowing that underneath the façade of the mask, he is relatively normal. But… I think too big a portion of the film was spent with his mask off. Particularly, the fight scene t the end with Rey. But anyway, no biggie – just something I wish was slightly different.

Secondly, Captain Phasma. Sigh. I was so damn excited to hear that we have Star War’s first proper female villain. A storm trooper no less. Like, so totally excited. But where the heck even was she? She had like 3 scenes. I was sure the hype around it would have meant she played a more prominent role – which would have been amazing but it was not to be. That is really my only proper issue with the film.

So all in all, you can probably guess I loved The Force Awakens. And I realise this review has been going on for bloody ever so I’m going to shh now but it was honestly 2 of the most worth-while hours I’ve ever spent in the cinema and if I don’t stop typing now I’ll be talking about it until next May when episode 8 is released so bye. Go see it.