Spoiler Free Movie Review: Star Wars-The Force Awakens: Banging my head against a wall

Directed by: J. J. Abrams
Written by: Lawrence Kasdan, J. J. Abrams & Michael Arndt
Starring: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver & Harrison Ford
Distributed by: Walt Disney
Release Date: 14th December 2015


Sometimes, no scratch that. I’ll start again.

Most of the time I feel like I am living in a parallel reality. I’m here, but not really here, if you know what I mean. I walk around you, but I’m not really a part of you. I’m outside, a bit off, a bit odd, watch out for me. I’m the strange one.

A very weak villain

Being the (accidentally) strange person that I am, I get to be the sole, lonely witness to things that ‘normal’ people cannot see. But, and here’s the worse bit. I refuse to keep my delusional visions to myself. I go onto the Internet, and here I am now, and I spew my bile everywhere. I’m a terrible person. I really am.

I’m an eternally loud mouthed, unpopular and opinionated person, and I spend my life shouting about the things that only I can see. It’s a frustrating life. I point out what is in front of me, things that are invisible to almost everybody else on the planet (there are exceptions) and in doing so I become the bad guy. I’m the villain. Stick a helmet on me and call me Darth, but there’s no redemption scene for this guy.

Why can’t I just go along to get along? Why can’t I stick my head in the horse manure and pretend that I’m sniffing roses? I don’t know. There must be something wrong with me. I’m weird. I’m dangerous. I say things that people don’t want to hear, and so, once again, here I go, saying things about the new bloody Star Wars movie. It’s very likely that you are going to hate this review, so read with caution. Here I go again- RANT TIME.

Here’s how I felt as I left the cinema after sitting through the seeming eternity that is the new Star Wars movie. My ass was sore, my head hurt with the inanity of it, I was still struggling to detect some semblance of plot, and feminism was pouring out of my ears. I felt a stinging desire to scream, 'I’ve just witnessed the birth of a turd, don’t call a nurse, call a bloody plumber.’ And then I tune down, out of my own reality, back into the realm of ‘the norm’ and I listen to the voices of the people around me, the other cinema-goers, and horror to end all horrors, they bloody well loved it.

Agggghhh, my head is going to implode.

Here’s how the movie goes, and there will be NO SPOILERS here. It begins with a burst of optimism, fast paced action stuff, and excitement, excitement, excitement. It then settles down and you begin to realise that this is going to be a movie all about the feelings, the characters, a dollop of nostalgia and the not so subtle neoliberal bludgeoning of third wave feminism.

It's all about the girl..

Have you seen the Hunger Games? If so, you know how it goes. The young girl is the most important part of the movie, she’s tough, independent, brave, strong, MASCULINE, the future of humanity, blah, blah, blah. In this movie the young girl is the best mechanic, the best pilot, the best fighter, the best light sabre fighter (even though she has no training) and she generally makes all of the men look like fools as she dances circles around them.

The villain looks great, but is basically a wuss. His motivations for evil are skin deep, and he seems to exist purely as a punching bag for the female lead. That’s it. That’s all you are getting as far as character depth in this movie. All of the rest of them (Han Solo included) exist to serve the main protagonist, the Hunger Games perfect girl.

As for the plot, there is no plot. It’s cobbled together, parts of the first (good) movie and a bit of a search for Spock thing going on that they almost forget about until the very end. The special effects look like they cost a lot of money, and the soundtrack likewise, but when you search for the heart of the movie you’ll come up with nothing, because it has no heart. It has nothing to say about the world of 2015, and worst of all, it’s not even trying to.

So what is it trying to do? It’s trying for nostalgia, humour, and excitement, fun and umm, more nostalgia I guess. It has some amusing moments. The cinemagoers laugh at the bits that they are supposed to laugh at, and it’s very loud and has lots of explosions. But if you dare look deeper (as many will refuse to do) what you will find is a lack of ideas, and a lack of connection to post 9/11 concerns.

...and nostalgia.

The villains look like Nazi’s. They line up like they are at Nuremberg rally in 1935 where they listen to the crazed ranting speech of their authoritarian leader. But this is not real world contemporary evil. There is no discernible ideology behind the evil that they do. They are evil because they are ‘the dark-side.’ That’s as deep as things get. They are cartoon evil, distanced from all of the contemporary concerns (neoliberalism, multiculturalism, tolerance, diversity, political correctness, statism, the rise of the social justice clown, endless foreign wars based on lies, enslavement to private banks, immigration and Sunni Islam) that plague our real world.

Look at that bracketed list. These are the issues that need to be addressed in the world of 2015. Will you see any of them being addressed in this movie? No, because it is a movie for juvenile adults that still want to be kids, and bringing any of that reality into their movie would make them feel uncomfortable, so out it goes. There will be no reality here. This movie is ‘awesome,’ it’s Star Wars.

They look cool, but their role is limited.

The counter arguments to this review will be that is was fun, exciting, entertaining, funny, for children, and there was a ‘cool’ moment that was a bit shocking, and upsetting. I found ‘the moment’ to fall flat, mainly because I was expecting it to happen, and secondly because by the point in the movie when it did take place, I had long lost interest in anything that was happening. I will give the movie credit though. It was a big safe blockbuster movie. It will make lots of money for Disney. Most people will love it, and I recognise that I am certainly not ‘most people.’ It wasn’t made for me. I can sod off. That’s fair. I accept that.

Let’s finish off this review before I waste any more brain cells on it. Perhaps the worst thing that I can say about it is that is has KILLED any remaining interest that I had in the Star Wars franchise. I loved Star Wars as a kid, but I guess I’m not a kid anymore, so it’s gone for me now. There will be another movie, and I will not be watching.

What else is there to say? A lot of people will love this stinky egg of a movie, and they will suck in its toxic vapours until they are puking all over the floor in delirious delight. As for me, I’ll be walking around the vomit, avoiding the puking fanboys and retreating back into my own safe space called reality. Goodbye Star Wars. Thanks for the memories, but I’m all grown-up now.


Rating: 4/10 (Starts strong, settles into a comfortable Space-Nazi, one-liners, explosions, jokes, nostalgic routine, becomes all about the perfect female lead, loses all semblance of plot and concludes with a familiar bang, and a nostalgic plea to watch the next movie.)