Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I’m delighted to report that they’ve done it: The Force Awakens lives up to its enormous expectations. Well, let’s face facts: the bar for quality was pretty low after the prequel trilogy, so even a merely average sci-fi action picture would have been an improvement. But J.J. Abrams and Disney have put out the best Star Wars they probably could within its heavy parameters of franchise-building and nostalgia (much emphasis on the latter). And it’s actually a pretty good movie, which is an achievement, considering how dangerously close it comes to being more of an original trilogy clip show than its own work.

I’m sure many won’t complain about the absolute glut of fan service on display, and indeed, it’s very nice to have the old players and dirty space western feeling of the classics back. However, it turns out there is such thing as too much of a good thing. There are too many callbacks to count in a single viewing, from whole sequences and scene constructions that viewers will recognize immediately, to entire plot points so similar that they’d be called rip-offs in any other series. Every expository locale is packed with colorful aliens, clearly emulating the classic Mos Eisley cantina or Jabba the Hutt’s palace, although never quite as imaginatively or convincingly. Hell, the story is even structured to introduce all the returning characters in blatant applause moments, sometimes at the expense of narrative cohesion.

I can’t really spoil the story because, frankly, there isn’t much to spoil. For all the mystery surrounding the picture’s production, it turns out the broad strokes were right there in the trailers: The galaxy far, far away is still at war, though the Rebellion and Empire factions now have new names (the particulars of the galactic conflict aren’t really explained, but it doesn’t really matter). Thrown into the midst of this fight are scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) and deserting Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega). And as for the much-discussed lack of a certain character in the marketing, it’s pretty much the driving point of the whole plot.

The film is also pretty light on the backstories, and as a result, it takes a bit of time to come around to the new characters. But grow on you they certainly do. Boyega and Ridley both have the natural appeal and adventurous spirit of Mark Hamill in 1977 and an even greater knack for humor, playing off each other, the droid BB-8, and everything around them like assured pros (my favorite bit is a hilarious spin on a certain Force technique that remarkably fits quite nicely within the peril of a scene). Oscar Isaac also shows a bit of the Han Solo swagger in pilot Poe Dameron, despite getting much less screen time than previews had us believe. But no one is as good as the man himself, and it’s like Harrison Ford never left the role. Going on another adventure with Solo and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) is the greatest source of joy in the entire picture (the rest of the familiar faces are limited to somewhere between cameos and supporting roles, lest the whole thing become a complete nostalgia fest).

But the most interesting and surprising role is Adam Driver as main antagonist Kylo Ren, whose arc takes some time to get interesting. At first seemingly just a pale Darth Vader knockoff (which in a way turns out to be kind of the point), he’s gradually revealed to be a more complicated figure, and certainly the new player with the most substance. At times, he exhibits some of the tortured emotional turmoil we never got from Anakin Skywalker in the prequels (at least not well), and suggests a moral ambiguity fairly uncommon in Star Wars. So far, Ren is far and away the most interesting new element of the series going forward.

Behind all the runaway nostalgia, that’s mostly what the movie’s about, setting up all the new people and plotlines for the next era of the franchise. It at least goes about it enjoyably, with plenty of chases, shootouts, dogfights, and lightsaber duels that are the series’ hallmark. And at one point, the point I’m sure is going to be the talk of the picture once the agreed-upon spoiler blackout ends, it says loud and clear that it’s willing to break the mold and go to bold, perhaps dark new places. It’s a heavy scene, too. I’ll just say that in the theater I was in, the sound of dozens of Kleenex wrappers was quite audible.

That part notwithstanding, The Force Awakens is not on the same emotional or technically awe-inspiring level of the classic trilogy. Try as it might to duplicate them, I don’t think any film can wow the way the then-revolutionary effects of the originals once did, nor recreate the same joy and wonder in adult fans that those films did in their childhood (kids discovering the saga through this movie on the other hand…). But if the goal was to reawaken the sense of adventure and unadulterated cinematic zeal that’s been absent from the series for so long, the movie is a major success. Star Wars is fun again, and full of exciting possibilities. It’s a wonderful feeling.