Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

USA
directed by: J.J. Abrams
written by: Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams, Michael Arndt
starring: Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac
seen: 30th January, 2016

I've been in love with Adam Driver ever since "Inside Llewyn Davis", and here he is, crying on top of everything so his sex-appeal is up by three hundred percent at least, but him being awesome does not guarantee the whole film inciting the same feeling.

And since the film didn't make me angry (what a surprise at this point in my life), I'm only going to complain about two things: 1. Those tantrums weren't especially sexy and I would like to see them done differently. 2. What exactly is up with Abrams and his inability to time things? Nothing in the film really lasts as long as it should. And most of all I'm talking about emotions, because the film really isn't about anything else.

The story is not the focus of attention, whether you consider it being simple and straightforward or schematic and copied - but that's one of the things I've dediced not to critize because the original trilogy is mostly also only one script filmed three times ("Empire" might be a small exception, but not entirely) - the point is, it should be atmosphere and immersion sitting there in the limelight. And:

The only cool moment I consider really well made is the first "traitor" moment, the rest of the film somewhat fades into one blob. The new good guys team is quite unimpressive (ok, we have a black guy, a woman and a jewish Guatemalean, where is rest of the joke, or some charisma at least, Oscar Isaac has some, but that's not enough). And the bad guys do their share of supposedly terror-sprouting monologuing in the same schematic and routine way.

At no point I was really scared that someone was in real danger and the only two scenes where I felt genuine interest were Kylo and Rey's first meeting in the forest and their subsequent conversation where Kylo first reveals his face. All the other situations felt rushed and forced and also predictable in their outcome. The only emotion that got a lot of attention was the sentiment dragged into the film by Han, but that's the nostalgia that does not move me very much, since it origins in the past and in the universe outside of the film.

If only the familiar situations had the guts to end in an unexpected way. Perhaps Kylo could, after performing the spoiler, find out that he's not strong enough to handle it, and react in basically any other way than how he did in the film. Or the marketing team could control itself a bit better and not give every ace away before the film itself even hits theatres.

Oh well, I'm developing some fanfictions in my mind and I'm hoping that the real screenwriters will deliver some surprises next time. And most of all I would like them to discover that between two or more people there can be a whole range of relationships, not only obligatory romance, blind following and black and white hostility.