Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released three weeks ago on December 18th. I went into the theater with high expectations but walked out feeling that it fell short. On the positive side, you could really tell that they came a long way from the first movie that was released in 1977, because J.J Abrams truly has the eye for directing and the movie was beautiful visually. All the spaceship chases and explosions were amazing. Also, whoever the costume designer is did a great job in making the characters still have that vibe from the first film but with a much more modern, rejuvenated look.

The acting also was great, especially from John Boyega who plays a stormtrooper named Finn who was once on the dark side but then turns good. Boyega has been in only four movies until landing this huge role in the Star Wars franchise, but I was very impressed by how he took on this new role. He brought his personality to the film and it surely showed.

I’m sure it was a challenge for Boyega, and equally difficult for Daisy Ridley who plays Rey. Ridley has been in just two previous movies, but again the upcoming star surely impressed with her vibrant personality and big smile. Although Boyega and Ridley aren’t well known yet in Hollywood, I’m sure after the next couple of Star Wars movies, we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in other films.

The reason that I felt The Force Awakens came up short was because too much story was compacted into the two hours and 16 minutes of the movie. I’m hoping that the reason this movie was made was to get a new and much broader audience, because a lot of parts that could’ve been explained in great detail went unexplained.  They could’ve definitely split this into two parts. There were a lot of new characters just thrown into the movie that had a lot of story to them. Even some of the new planets could’ve been explained: What species is on the planet?  What’s the reason for some of those characters ending up on the planet? What happened during the 10 year gap since the last Star Wars that came out in 2005?

I felt that there was one character that every fan was looking forward  to – Kylo Ren – who was made to look very weak.  It wasn’t that Adam Driver did a poor acting job, because his portrayal of the new Jedi gone rogue turning to the dark side was phenomenal. But – how does someone who is looked up to as the new Darth Vader not know the full capability of his strengths? How can he really be looked at as the new supreme leader? It just didn’t seem right, and I feel that for him to be taken seriously as the next ruler he needs to be someone that takes charge and doesn’t scurry away from a fight.

Overall I give this movie a 8.5/10. I’m definitely looking forward to watching it once more just in case I did miss anything that might answer some of these questions.  But after my initial viewing this movie came up short of being the great movie everyone else is saying it is, and does not even make it on my list of top 10 movies of 2015.