I hated it. I could end my review there, but I'll elaborate.
As a long time fan of the saga, I was immensely disappointed by the new film. I found the story to be lacking in depth and the film felt too "Disney" for my taste. I think most importantly, the film was weak in three main points:
The characters are lame
Many of us grew up loving Luke Skywalker and Yoda. However, their appearances in this film are lackluster. They do not engage in any action, do not impart any Jedi wisdom and simply tarnish the history of these great characters. Yoda mocking the Jedi texts and Luke making constipated faces at Rey is the best the writers could come up with?We didn't learn enough about Snoke
Personally, I really wanted to know who he was. Is he a Sith Lord? Is he Darh Plagueis returned from the dead? Is he the resurrected, turned-evil soul of Master Windu? We never find out. In fact, his entire existence at this point seems utterly pointless. Darth Maul, who had basically zero lines, was a better character.The evil isn't evil enough
This is my biggest problem with the movie. One of the reasons Star Wars is so compelling is because of the whole "light versus dark" philosophy. In the older movies, we saw good guys fight really bad guys. Even Anakin Skywalker, who started out good, had an epic fall from grace. You could just see the turmoil building in his eyes in those films. His story was believable. He turned evil because he feared losing the people he loved. I can relate to that. I would sell my soul to protect the ones I love too, and that is what made him so moving as a Sith. Instead, in this latest installment, we get Kylo Ren, an EMO, emotionally disturbed millennial sociopath with daddy issues.
I really hope the next film is better, but I won't count on it. With no proper antagonist in place, what does it matter anyway?