I thought it was an enjoyable movie, but not a particularly great one. I feel like it was far clunkier than some of Abrams' past efforts and Kasdan seemed to have an uneven touch.
Generally, the plot is okay. I like the ideas in it, even if they were well-worn. Creed showed that you can repeat story structures and still make an effective, moving film.
But the execution is really off in places. I feel like I can nail it down to several factors:
1) Characters: In general, I liked most of them. Finn was fun and likable, Kylo was interesting, etc. I appreciated the humor throughout.
But, more fundamentally, I think the character backgrounds and motivations were revealed at strange times or in too perfunctory of a manner. Revealing Kylo's heritage in an off-hand way and revealing his face before meeting Han felt like miscues that would have been better timed elsewhere. Other aspects like Han and Leia's interactions felt good, but were marred by strange dialogue (like the constant referencing of "Snoke" by his name, when the Emperor was never referred to in that way). Other newly introduced characters like Maz and Phasma felt completely pointless (largely because they were intended to be utilized differently).
And there is a slight issue with Rey. It feels like the storytellers withheld vital information about her character (because there's clearly something more about her past and her knowledge of the Force), and that kept me from truly connecting with her. I think that was a bad move from a character empathy standpoint.
2) Direction: Other things, like JJ's direction and cinematography drove me nuts. Oftentimes, you're thrown into scenes without even a simple establishing shot to geographically lay out the space the characters are interacting in. Sometimes we're being thrown into battles and there is no spatial awareness of the physical distance between those firing at each other or what they're aiming at. It generally makes the laser shooting and aerial combat sort of boring (particularly Poe's raid on Starkiller), because we don't know who's gaining the upperhand, what the goal is, or what the stakes are. I'd argue the only effective action scenes in the movie are the Falcon chase and the lightsaber fights at the end because they maintain spatial awareness throughout.
(Also on the cinematography note, the constant usage of close-ups made some scenes look cheap and felt like a waste of the real-world locations they filmed at. Why go to film on-location, if you're going to film the location out-of-focus behind giant talking heads?)
(3) There are narrative issues from a conceptual standpoint (without going into the obvious stuff, like the Starkiller). I think the whole "Luke is missing" angle just doesn't work. We're not given a good reason for it, nor is there any urgency to the mission to find him, especially when the characters are sidetracked by other things throughout the film. Simply put, we don't understand why all of the sudden Luke is needed right this second, given that the good guys seem to be blowing through hundreds of stormtroopers and besting dark siders without him. It doesn't help when the whole "mystery" of the movie is solved because R2 just randomly decides to "wake up" at the end and present the portion of the map where Luke is hiding.
Additionally: they blew it in terms of the lack of exposition. I appreciate leaving some things vague and allowing the audience to fill in the gaps, but there was nothing to chew on. We know about as much about Snoke, the First Order, the Knights of Ren, the Resistance, and the New Republic at the film's conclusion as we did in its introduction. That isn't effective world-building; it's declining to world-build. Maybe the prequels went too far with exposition, but explaining the basic state of the universe in a seven film series isn't asking too much, especially thirty years after the last chronological film.
4) Editing: This movie is missing a good 20 minutes and it shows. Characters come and go without you even getting a chance to say goodbye (Maz, Phasma). We go to places sometimes without even setting that place up (I'm thinking of the first reveal of Starkiller Base in particular). Other moments have no chance to breathe (like Finn's buddy dying or Maz's scenes), but others go on awkwardly long (like Rey and Kylo's interrogation scene, where it's just boring shots of people grimacing at each other for a minute). Some of the "visual jokes" are also mistimed or improperly conveyed, like Han's hyperdrive into the Starkiller panet, which should be a "funny" and "exciting" moment, but just comes off whatever.
5) John Williams: He didn't put in his best work here. I'm struggling to think of a single new motif that I found memorable. Arguably, his weak score hurt the movie's emotional beats and intended "hell yeah" moments more than anything else I listed above.
It probably sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. I had a good time and look forward to the next one. But I question whether or not I'm looking forward to the next one primarily because I wasn't satisfied here.
