The Force Awakes: Spoilers Everywhere Version

The Dalton Dilemma
There's a phenomenon in movies that I call the "Dalton Dilemma." A review of The Living Daylights, starring Timothy Dalton as James Bond, complains that Dalton's impatience with the script seeps through his performance, causing him to stomp about in permascowl mode because the whole proceeding is completely beneath him. I thought that this more accurately summed up James Bond the character rather than Timothy Dalton the actor.

What does this have to do with The Force Awakens? Well...

SPOILERS

The biggest problem with the film is that I can't figure out whether Adam Driver, the actor who plays Kylo Ren, utterly sucks at playing an imposing badass, or if he's utterly brilliant at playing a character who utterly sucks at playing an imposing badass. I mean, there were parts in the movie where I was honestly finding myself missing Hayden Christensen (I mean, say what you will about the guy's ability to read dialogue or emote like a normal human, the guy can glower in a way Driver simply can't). But at the same time, I really liked the psychotic rage episodes, the "this is your brain on the Dark Side" bits. That's... quite an accomplishment.

The Dark Side is horribly petty, isn't it?

The second-biggest problem with the film is that if they'd cut that final lightsaber fight just a minute or so shorter, so that it wasn't clear that Rey had gone into God Mode Sue, I wouldn't be complaining that Rey had gone into God Mode Sue. I'm willing to overlook the questions of "how does Rey know about Jedi Mind Tricks?" and "how does Rey know about Force Telekinesis?" because nobody told Luke about Force Telekinesis or Force Choke, either. But come on - I do expect some explanation of how in the hell Rey was able to beat off the guy who slaughtered all of Luke's other apprentices. And no, this is not like anything Luke does in the classic trilogy - he was already a good pilot, he's clearly outclassed in his first duel with Vader, and, yeah, he's somehow better in Jedi but let's not pretend that Jedi isn't a huge step behind the First Two in terms of quality.

The third-biggest problem is a retroactive one. Y'see, something that always bugged me about The Empire Strikes Back was that I could never figure out what Admiral Ozzel's fatal final mistake was. I ultimately decided that he couldn't have brought the fleet out of hyperspace close enough for an orbital bombardment without giving the rebels time to react... without breaking the 'verse's laws of physics. Only in this film, Han Solo brings the Falcon out of hyper literally right on top of a planet. So, what gives?

Other random bugging-me things:

• Pouty Brat does a bang-up job of paralyzing his opponents with the Force, but completely abandons this plan once it's time to do Lightsaber Fighting. Idiot.
• That final three or four shots of Rey finding Luke Skywalker went on way too long. Give him the lightsaber, have him nod sagely, end of film.
• Gwendoline Christie was absurdly underused.
• R2 conveniently powers himself back on right at the end just to set up the sequel. Yawn.
• Wasn't sure if Pouty Brat was torturing Rey or if that was his version of foreplay. I actually blame them both for that - other than that scene, Daisy Ridley's pretty good.

They also made a big show of throwing out the old Expanded Universe (all the books), only to decide to to a story where Han and Leia's son turns to the dark side and murders the spouse of a Skywalker sibling because his eeeeeeeeevil mentor told him to do so for vague reasons. Hrm. You know, if you're going to rip off The Books, I have one suggestion for you:

So I guess I should talk about that: they continued the grand tradition of killing off the most famous actor in the first film of the trilogy. The bit leading up to Han's death is utterly fantastic, although the bit where he caresses Pouty Brat's face right before falling into a Convenient Bottomless Pit was far and away the most narmy thing in the film. And this scene is, by the way, a great example of what I'm talking about with regards to Adam Driver. Because this scene could have made the Dark Side scary again for the first time since Empire, but instead we get Pouty Brat murdering his father because a) shock value and b) Harrison probably demanded it in exchange for coming back. 

What do I mean by making the Dark Side scary? In Empire, Yoda told Luke that if he started down the dark path, "forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice." One bite of the apple and you're toast. Never mind that Luke calls on the Dark Side to defeat Vader at the end of Jedi, and then Vader apparently redeems all the monstrous things he did in the prequels/toy ads by dropping Palpatine down a Convenient Bottomless Pit. After that, the Dark Side wasn't really a compelling threat. In the prequels, Palpatine was a threat, but that was because of who he was and what we knew he'd become, not which branch of the local sect he belonged to. I mean really, Revenge of the Sith boils down, essentially, to a religious dispute. 

And far be it from me to pretend that either the prequels/toy ads or The Force Awakens are great works of cinematic art, but compare this to the (overly pretentious) Godfather II.* In both stories we have a character so corrupted by evil that he murders a close relative at the end. The death of Han Solo could have been a moment on par with the death of Fredo Corleone, a perfect indicator of just what the Dark Side can drive a man to. Never mind all that "murdering younglings" shite from the toy ads/prequels. But, no, instead we got Pouty Brat impaling his father because his other father figure told him it would be a pretty cool thing to do.

*Oh, come on, this is fair game; Lucas compares Palpatine's big Galactic Empire speech in Sith to the baptism scene in Godfather I in the commentary.

There were some spoilery things I liked, which I guess I should talk about. The first is that as far as franchise films from 2015 where the hero and villain have A Secret Past go, this film blows Spectre out of the water. Maybe JJ can save the Bonds next?

Han and Leia didn't make it. Every novel author had to sand down Han's edges and keep the two characters together - there was nowhere for them to go. What happens in the movie is a lot more realistic. (Yes, I just used the word "realistic" in a review involving, well, Star Wars.)

There's no attempt to pull an Empire-style shocker (so far; can't wait for Rey to turn out to be Luke's daughter in Star Wars 8: The Search for More Money). It comes out pretty early on what the relationship between Han and Pouty Brat is, and that plays out over the rest of the movie.

So yeah, The Force Awakens was pretty good. It could have been a lot better, though.