(English) Star Wars: The Force Awakens’: Film review

As the best Star Wars anything — film, TV show, video game, spinoff, what-have-you — in at least 32 years, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” pumps new energy and life into a hallowed franchise in a way that both resurrects old pleasures and points in promising new directions. But whereas the fundamental touchstones of George Lucas’ original creation remain, in director J.J. Abrams’ hands there is a shift in tone that brings the material closer to the feel of a Steven Spielberg film. Specifically, into an Indiana Jones realm, which is mostly, but not entirely, to the good.
Opening nearly everywhere in the world before Christmas, with China to follow in early January, Disney’s debut as the new custodian of Lucas’ baby looks to deliver nothing less than one of the two or three highest-grossing films of all time.
To be sure, any time you can speak of a film’s earning potential as residing in the billion-dollar-plus neighborhood, the main story is to be more often found in the business section than on the arts pages. When the financial stakes are this high, what ends up on the screen can often be judged as much, or more, in terms of commercial calculation than creative achievement. So one of the primary satisfactions of this sharply paced and lively blockbuster is the obvious care that has gone into every aspect of the production, from the well-balanced screenplay and dominance of real sets and models over computer graphics to the casting, a strict limitation on self-referential, in-jokey humor and the thoroughly refreshed feel of John Williams’ exuberant score.
Virtually none of these virtues were managed by Lucas himself when he made his lamentable second trilogy of Star Wars films from 1999 to 2005. But Abrams has made his career thus far by honoring his masters, notably Spielberg and Gene Roddenberry, and now Lucas, and he’s got the practice more or less down.
“Star Wars: Episode VII” must and does begin with the familiar Williams musical fanfare and an informational scroll advising as to the disappearance of Luke Skywalker, the rise of the evil First Order and the threat now posed to Leia and the galaxy’s good folk, who must urgently pull together as a new Resistance. In an annihilating nocturnal opening sequence, a new generation of Stormtroopers goes on an indiscriminate rampage while searching for the bearer of a map revealing Luke’s whereabouts, which is secretly held by the roly-poly BB-8, a charming spherical droid that rolls smoothly from place to place and overall serves as a welcome robot reboot from the sidelined (but hardly vanquished) R2-D2.
Battle lines are drawn and good guys and bad are readily established. Hotshot pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac, very enthusiastic), a man very much in the Solo mold, is taken prisoner by the Order, which is led militarily by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), a man whose black mask and filtered speech make him the very picture of a Darth Vader wannabe.Meanwhile, a Stormtrooper who comes to be called Finn (John Boyega) is so disgusted by the genocide in which he’s participated that he defects to the Resistance. Crucially, Finn forms an alliance with desert “scavenger” Rey (Daisy Ridley), a self-sufficient loner with fearsome fighting and survival skills. Rey’s feisty individualism, assertive physicality and often sweaty, dirty face would make her right at home in a Mad Max film, just one example of how the Star Wars franchise has been toughened up a bit by its new proprietors.