Reader note: I don’t do spoiler alerts because I don’t ever give away details of movie or book plots. I will discuss the movie and how I felt about it in general terms, just so you know. Some people don’t want to know a thing in advance about a movie like this, and if so, skip it. Thanks.

Maria succumbed and came along with me to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens this afternoon. The Bennington Cinema 7 is a good bet for blockbuster movies on weekdays, there were plenty of good seats. We saw a 3-D Version. Maria liked the movie, she said it was enjoyable, well-acted and she thought the outfits were cool. From an artist, that means something. She enjoyed it. Below is my review.

__

In their first century, the big idea of film was for people to attach themselves emotionally to the stars and actors and connect with the characters and plot lines they saw.  Those stories were generally simple, the actors very accessible and present. The movies were mostly about people and their lives and we got the chance to know them, see their characters develop and attach to them. In this century, the big movie is about the spectacle, not the stars.  The director doesn’t have a lot of time to develop characters or let us get to know them.

And the characters whiz in and out like space fighter craft.

When movies cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, and depend on teenagers here and in China to make profits, the director and writer does not have a huge amount of leg room: there has to be a lot of gee-whiz spectacle, plenty of loud boom-boom, a lot of universal dazzle.

There is plenty in Star Wars, and almost all of it is very well done.

The neat thing about this movie is that there is plenty of spectacle, and a lot of humanity. Battle scenes take up a good two-thirds of the film, but the movie never loses sight of the people, they are woven all through and never left completely behind. It is a very human film, for all of the whizzing star chatter, explosions, zooming warships, rockets and laser beams. Be warned that there is the inevitable galaxy of marketable characters – more than ever – and the mixing of two very different cultures: the first Star Wars films and the next generation.

You will like the people in this movie, I think. It is a rare thing for a big-budget action movie to be heartwarming. It is.

I saw both generations in the theater, the old and the new, everyone seemed to love the film.

J.J. Abrams did a great job of preserving the sense of wonder and adventure in the original Star Wars, but also moving forward to a new franchise. The old one had definitely lost its way.  The old geezers and the young heroes mesh easily and naturally here.

One of the driving forces behind the Star Wars original success was the author and mythologist Joseph Campbell. He knew the evil man in the black mask and the young innocent seeking strength for his hero journey were among the oldest and most enduring myths in human history.  Campbell suggested them to George Lucas.  They still work. I think that was the key to Star Wars first great success.

Abrams did not forget to keep and honor these powerful stories in his new movie.

The star of the movie by a wide margin is Daisy Ridley as Rey.

She is the runaway hero, she nearly stole the movie. The force awakened in her big-time. She was perfect playing the role of a strong, independent woman with great courage,  a warm soul,  and yes, a genuine sense of vulnerability.  She even cried a few times between kicking evil ass.

She was, I thought, sensational. You have to love the old trooper Harrison Ford returning as Hans Solo, the sarcastic space rascal with soft heart and the cuddly and marketable companion named Chewbacca. (I bought Fate a Chewbacca chew toy at Petco the other day, she loves it, they can’t keep it in stock.)

It is almost unheard of these days for a woman to be saved by a man in a major movie, the women save themselves and the men. Unfortunately, they still do all the saving in very male ways – by outfighting everybody. Perhaps the next step will be to show women who know better ways to solve problems.

This is a big and expensive spectacle movie. It is sometimes enthralling but almost never truly frightening.  Nobody wants to alienate small children, this is a Disney movie. Kids of just about any age can handle it. Bodies fly, but blood is rarely seen.

At the center of the film is one of the most profoundly dysfunctional families in all of filmdom. They have serious issues, as the world learns.  I did miss Darth Vader, his successor Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) was a bit too neurotic and torn for me, I loved Vader’s pure and unapologetic sense of evil. He was just a bad guy, it didn’t trouble him a bit. I am also a bit wary of the obligatory Super Demon, extra-human devils with deep voices and radiant eyes who are out to ruin the world from dark caves. Dracula was scarier and much more creative.

The movie is loaded with tons of marketable characters you will soon see at Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and Disney World. There is even a chattering robot who is cuter than a puppy, let alone C-3PO,  and much more expressive than his predecessor. You will want to take him home. The brazen insertion of these characters bothers me, but they don’t seem to bother anyone else, they are just accepted now as part of the ethos of modern movie-making.

I should say that the plot makes little  sense, but it doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say that the future of civilization is once again at stake, and I have to say I kept thinking of certain political figures in our country when I saw the rallies of the bad guys.   I can’t talk about it without revealing it, so I’ll leave it to you to judge the narrative for yourself.  I long ago lost track of who is the offspring of who, and where good and evil begin.

I can’t really imagine anyone hating this movie or regretting to go see it. It moves fast and is a lot of fun.

I found the plot predictable and once again marketing suffuses a film like this: the ephemeral ending is as much about the sequel than the film you are paying to see.  Big movie franchises don’t generally go in for final resolutions, the stockholders would go nuts. I can comfortably recommend the movie. I can’t say it is a great film, but it is as good as it is possible for it to be.  I’m happy to say it is a very, very good film.

The Star Wars franchise is in good hands.