Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  9 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: 'The Force Awakens,' does admittedly have a similar plot to the first Star Wars. An evil Empire chases a resistance fighter with an important map. Before they're captured, they give the map to a droid to flee on a desert planet where it meets a mysterious orphan hero. With some initially reluctant help from Han Solo, the hero returns the droid to the resistance, and they take the fight to the Empire to destroy their planet-killing weapon and base.
  
  But, crucially, where the first Star Wars treated its characters more like archetypes, this film gives them serious nuance and depth. The central pair Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega) are both scared, stressed and giddy in equal measure at the adventure they find themselves on, and their journeys are all about finding the courage to put their personal wishes aside and join an impossible fight that they have no direct stake in. Han Solo (Harrison Ford) has become painfully estranged from Princess Leia's resistance after their son Kylo Renn turned to the dark side, so he gets a touching arc about finding the strength to face his pain and rejoin the fight, all whilst fulfilling a kind of mentor role for Rey and Finn. And then there's Kylo Renn himself (Adam Driver); an openly tortured villain who has to decide whether to stay on the dark side, or embrace the pull to the light and his father.
  
  Those inner conflicts are delivered through plenty of clever dialogue which says a lot between the lines, as well as the brilliantly committed performances which hit the kind of balance between sincere and theatrical that would make Steven Spielberg proud.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Thematically it is certainly a bit of a retread...
  
  VERDICT: 'The Force Awakens,' may have a similar plot to the first Star Wars, but its nuanced characterisation makes for a far more gripping cinematic experience.

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