#STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKEN MOVIE#
#STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKEN DRIVER#

Peter MayhewвЂ™s Chewbacca gets lots of laugh lines - or yowls. Though his voice is now a croak, Harrison Ford slips into the swashbuckling Han Solo role with youthful vigor, his timing as crisp as ever, and Carrie FisherвЂ™s cracked, deepened, post-rehab voice gives Leia new depth. I wonвЂ™t spoil the twist that comes early, and you probably already know, that throws us back into the world of fathers and sons and the Dark Side of the Force.Д«ut the best things are the old things: familiar camera setups, scene-change wipes, costumes, John WilliamsвЂ™s music (thereвЂ™s even a melancholy reprise of that superb Darth Vader theme), enemy fighter ships that emit plangent groans, the Millennium Falcon, and, of course, the human stars. He stops the show with the first lightsaber temper tantrum, which sends minions and Stormtroopers scurrying.

#STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKEN DRIVER#

The third wheel of the film is Kylo Ren, the junior Darth Vader of the First Order played by Adam Driver - who overcomes the giggles from Girls fans (there is a fan overlap, oddly enough) that greet his first appearance to embody an Oedipal nightmare. The gimmick is that Finn keeps trying to rescue his damsel in distress but ends up far more distressed than she does. HeвЂ™s so expressive he wears his heart not just on his sleeve but on his trembling lightsaber. But Boyega has a powerful presence - he made a startling film debut as a hood in the urban sci-fi thriller Attack the Block (2011) - and it will be fun to watch his character become less moist. An attack of conscience makes him throw off his white armor, at which point Abrams cuts to a close-up of him over-emoting. I donвЂ™t think itвЂ™s an accident that Finn is black and that he begins the film as a Stormtrooper, having been kidnapped from his home world and enslaved by the First Order. She and Finn - the core of Star Wars: The Next Generation - have been expertly contrived to appeal to millions. Many critics over the years have complained that LucasвЂ™s is a boysвЂ™ universe, but nowadays princesses fight their own battles - with lightsabers. The main thing is that she marks the movieвЂ™s biggest departure from LucasвЂ™s worldview. All we know right now is that sheвЂ™s maybe possibly got Luke-ish abilities, and that the charming Ridley bears such an obvious resemblance to Keira Knightley (down to her fanged grin) that she might be a clone. Is it Rey? SheвЂ™s a scavenger on a desert planet (not unlike the young Luke) and also has a backstory that will be revealed in subsequent chapters. HeвЂ™s a real robot! In any case, BB-8 takes off the way R2-D2 and C-3PO did 38 years ago, bound for the next Luke Skywalker. And thereвЂ™s evidently no human inside him. Frankly, I found him/it borderline intolerable, but the simple design is ingenious and how wonderful that he/it is not computer-generated but of our world. Hey, Max von Sydow has that map! Hi, Max! Bye, Max! The First Order massacres a bunch of people (and other life forms) and captures Poe, who has already hidden the map inside his droid, BB-8, a rolling ball topped with half of another ball with the manner of a yelping puppy. I honestly couldnвЂ™t follow it all, but the takeaway is that the Dark Side is now embodied by the First Order (rather than the Empire), which borrows its rhetoric and architecture from the Third Reich, and that the Resistance, led by General (not Princess) Leia, has sent her best pilot, Poe Dameron (a funny, mouthy Oscar Isaac), to obtain a map to LukeвЂ™s location.

#STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKEN MOVIE#

The movie opens with John WilliamsвЂ™s triumphal orchestra blast and the titles that make us salivate on cue, followed by a backward exposition crawl announcing that Luke Skywalker has vanished and вЂ¦ a bunch of other stuff. Related StoriesД®very Line From a (Non-Leia) Woman in Star Wars It says where money is concerned, the galaxyвЂ™s the limit. ItвЂ™s a fanвЂ™s wet dream and a modern studioвЂ™s, too.

But itвЂ™s the fun of seeing something fairly successfully redone, with the promise of more of the same to come. The movie has already blown away advance-sale records, and when you go (which, of course, you will) I bet youвЂ™ll have fun - I did, mostly. He and co-writers Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan (who co-wrote by far the best of the series, The Empire Strikes Back) merge old and new streams, mixing Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, and others into a newish plot centering on young вЂ™uns Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega). Now, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he does a good imitation of George Lucas circa 1977. He rekindled Star Trek onscreen, delighting many fans - even if they couldnвЂ™t point to a single performance or scene that surpassed the old films or shows. He aped Steven SpielbergвЂ™s signature moves in the sci-fi adventure Super 8. Abrams is so intuitively unoriginal that heвЂ™s almost mystical: He seems to be using the Force to get on the wavelength of other filmmakers.

Star wars the force awaken