The best J.J. Abrams film ever? Yes, the best J.J. Abrams film ever!
But that bar is so fucking low that it's buried 2 meters underground in the the ninth circle of hell.
That said, The Force Awakens works as a direct remake, sometimes bordering on shot-for-shot, of the original George Lucas Star Wars. It is entertaining for what it is and goes by quickly, especially in the first half. Abrams is not responsible for that, though. He didn't direct this film so much as he was hired to be the face of the Disney group which constructed the story, the script, and the filming. The flick would have been known as the most ridiculous fan service monster in human history if not for the one entity serviced even more blatantly than the fans: Harrison Ford. 35 years later he got what he wanted. And now the luckiest people in movies are gonna be Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher--I doubt Disney will give up on the old folks in the next one, so those two are gonna be prominently featured and will ride the next SW movie off into the sunset.
As far as this one, it's too bad that the script committee didn't have a touch more loyalty to the idea of explaining shit and characterization--ya know, worldbuilding and all that. The movie could have gone 10 minutes longer in the interest of making it a little less dumb since the stupid was hella strong with this one--lasers shooting across the galaxy in seconds is just the beginning of all the nonsense that nobody involved with the script seemed interested in explaining, or explaining away, in any sense. (Undoubtedly one reason why the Mouse hired Abrams was that J.J. had neither the balls nor the talent to interfere with the product with any obvious questions any 8 year old moviegoer would have.) The biggest disappointment is the knowledge that so much could have been done with the material that didn't involve a tired rehash of desert planets and aimless youngsters and Death Stars and lightsabered mentors and shit. The thing looked good though. The FX worked pretty well, and the production was well-suited to multiple viewings in the theater--undoubtedly on purpose, as well. Probably the biggest weakness beyond all the obvious shit was Adam Driver. At least he continues the Star Wars tradition of awful casting making poorly-written characters essentially unwatchable. Go team! Everyone else was okay enough and didn't threaten to ruin it the way Driver and Kylo Ren did.
Maybe the next one will be better. Empire Strikes Back was pretty good. What will they call the ice planet in that next one?
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