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Star Wars: Hie [me Mens is fun fan service
by Lindsey Bahr
(AP) J.J. Abrams may not elevate the
language of Star Wars, but he sure is fluent in it.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is no more and no
less than the movie that made us love it in the
first place. In fact, it’s basically the same thing.
Isn’t that what we all wanted anyway?
It’s hard to talk rationally about Star
Wars. It is a deeply silly thing, with a genuine,
undeniable hold on our culture. Chalk it up to
nostalgia, collective arrested development or the
ineffable. But for many, the magic of Star Wars
is inseparable from the magic of the movies and,
hey, that’s no small thing.
These movies make us lose ourselves in
the spectacle. They make us forget our best
instincts. They make us love the advertising as
much as the art. They make us kids again.
In this way, The Force Awakens, the seventh
movie in this improbable yet inevitable series,
delivers.
It’s a movie made by someone who loves Star
Wars deeply. Someone who can see more clearly
than even its creator what made it so special to
so many people. Abrams has taken everything
that we adore about that first film, delicately
mixed up a few elements, and churned out a
reverent homage that’s a heck of a lot of fun to
watch.
From the opening scroll to the sequel-
setup ending, he manages to hit each beat of its
38-year-old predecessor.
Abrams has essentially passed the torch on
to its new cast by making them amalgamations
of the originals. You’ll know it when you see it.
Who cares if it’s Star Wars Mad-Libs?
There’s the resistance-affiliated droid, who
ends up stranded on a desert planet carrying
a secret message (BB-8). There’s the nobody
with the dead-end job and a Jedi obsession
(Daisy Ridley’s Rey), who has a life-changing
encounter with said droid. There’s the reckless
kid uncertain of his allegiances (John Boyega’s
Finn). There’s the cocky pilot (Oscar Isaac’s Poe
Dameron). There’s the powerful, masked villain,
too (Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren).
The plot is as unwieldy and MacGuffin-
filled as one might expect. It almost serves no
purpose to go into the specifics at this point
beyond the fact that the galaxy is in disarray,
an evil army is growing (as is a resistance),
and a series of coincidences help Rey collect a
“Wizard of Oz”-worthy posse to help get BB-8
back to its rightful owners.
This time, it’s all because of Luke Skywalker
(Mark Hamill). He’s vanished. Those are the
first words on the screen and the last we’ll say
about the big mystery.
The action is nearly non-stop, as is the
humor, which kicks into gear when Han Solo
(Harrison Ford) finally shows up. Ford is in his
element—delightful, energetic, funny, brash and
fully Han, bantering with Chewie and everyone
with the same verve he showed nearly 40 years
ago.
If only the same showcase was given to
Carrie Fisher, who is woefully, inexcusably
underused as Leia.
As for the new characters, Ridley’s Rey is
a dream. She is feisty, endearingly awe-filled,
capable and magnetic. She is the new anchor.
She is our Luke, and she’s much cooler than he
ever was.
Driver’s Kylo Ren is also a disarmingly
powerful presence, whose wickedness seeps
through the mask. Boyega is appealing as Finn,
too, even if his character doesn’t quite make
sense on paper. (How do empathy, guilt and
personality develop in a man who has been
trained since birth to be a Stormtrooper?) But
that’s taking things too seriously.
Others are less memorable, including
Gwendoline Christie’s Captain Phasma, and
Andy Serkis’s preposterous-looking Supreme
Leader Snoke. And while Abrams captures the
lively, hokey and practical visual fun of the
originals, he occasionally slips into generic
blockbuster mode. But those moments pass, and
all it takes is a perfect John Williams music cue
to transport you back into the cozy blanket of
that galaxy far, far away.
Loving Star Wars without reserve isn’t an
easily justifiable thing, and neither is the fun of
The Force Awakens. They are intrinsically linked.
To love the original is to love this one. On its
own, The Force Awakens probably isn’t much. It’s
not likely to convert anyone, either. But for the
rest of us—even the most casual of fans—it fits
the bill just fine.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, is rated
PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of
America for “sci-fi action violence.” Running
time: 135 minutes. Three stars out of four.