Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), PG-13, ★★★1/2

Run...another bad guy is chasing us.

Here it is, at last, Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The most anticipated movie of the year or ever since the announcement with the Disney merger with LucasFilm and/or there will be another Star Wars film. To tell you the truth, I was a bit worried and skeptical simultaneously because of the taste we got from the prequels. I asked myself, "Do I need to see another Star Wars movie? Does the people need to see another Star Wars movie?" Science fiction is a popular genre nowadays and it has been an excellent year for the genre: Ex Machina, The Martian, Interstellar, Gravity, etc. I think that this was the right time to release another Star Wars movie to give us a taste of exciting entertainment to finish off the year. When finished watching this movie, the inner force of the inner child in me has awakened me to say that the force is with them as they delivered a highly entertaining film filled with nostalgia, glee and suspense. It's up there with A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.

I'm not going to reveal spoilers for you because I want to you experience the movie event yourself so I'll try to expose the plot as vaguely as possible.

It is 30 years later after The Second Death Star has been destroyed. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has vanished into exile as The First Order, successor to the Empire, has been looking for him. General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) is leading the Resistance with the help from the Republic to look for Luke and sends her best pilot, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) to scout the planet Jakku to locate his brother. Poe tries to find clues on a village and obtains a piece of the map and inserts into his little droid, BB-8. When the villagers are threatened by stormtroopers, Poe is outnumbered and is captured by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), their new leader, as his droid, BB-8, goes somewhere safe.

Meanwhile, on the planet, we meet a scavenger named Rey (Daisy Ridley) as she smuggles parts to survive for a day and she discovers BB-8 as it tags along with her. On the First Order ship, a Stormtrooper named Finn (John Boyega) calms himself down after witnessing some horror from earlier on an attack and as Ren finds out what happened to the piece of the map, General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) orders Ren to send down troopers to find the droid.

As both Finn and Poe help each other out and escape, their TIE fighter ship gets shot down and crash-lands on Jakku. Finn is all right but Poe is nowhere to be found. Finn walks up to the market and spots Rey and the droid as BB-8 signals her that he is a threat to it. Finn and Rey do not get along initially as he was a former stormtrooper but as one of the market owners recognize the droid as being wanted for the First Order, stormtroopers attack causing them to chase Rey, Finn and BB-8 down and they got on the Millennium Falcon which, as a joke, it was called "garbage" and they find Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). That's about the build-up to the movie and that's all I'm going to reveal.

Chewbacca and Han Solo back again.

It's great to see some of the original characters and some of the magic from the original trilogy back again because we, the audience, want to see that fun that we had when we were children or younger adults that we initially saw from the original trilogy. This is one of the funnest times I've had in theater ever as I heard the bombastic sounds of John Williams' orchestra playing when the Star Wars title was shrunken down into the stars and vanishing and we read the opening crawl.

But, I was a bit questionable when I was on the way to the theater. The last time I had that kind of enthusiastic build-up to another Star Wars event was back in 1999 when I saw The Phantom Menace and that movie was a bore and during the middle portion of the movie, I went to the bathroom and that was before the pod-race sequence. Anyway, I did not want my high expectations to interfere with my genuine reaction and emotions to the whole experience because I did not want to be let down again.

The cast is superb. Harrison Ford is back as Han Solo in a gruff, older and a bit wiser character than the original trilogy because he has experienced it before, re-telling the stories of the Jedi and the War with the Empire. It's never old with the funny banter between Han Solo and Chewbacca. Carrie Fisher is likable and still has lovely chemistry with Ford. Daisy Ridley is a superstar with her first big role as a bad-ass female chick who stands her ground and try to survive the way she has the only option to survive on: smuggling. John Boyega is quite enthusiastic as he can get and is has good chemistry with the original characters and the new characters. Oscar Isaac is quite good as the hotshot pilot and Adam Driver is quite fantastic as the complex villain who will have nothing stand in his way and do whatever it takes to make the First Order the true ruler of the galaxy.

Now, even though I had a fun time with this movie, I have a few quibbles in regards to the character development and nostalgic tones and to the plot but I cannot reveal my quibble with the plot. My quibble with the character development, however, is that even though Rey is a very good character, I felt like that there was not enough substance as to how she is a good fighter even with a lightsaber and even in the beginning, when she flies the Falcon for the first time. I thought to myself: when did she learn to operate that complex craft? There were, at times, however, like Creed earlier last month, that the movie relied too much on nostalgia as some of the story was like A New Hope and that's all I have to say about that. But, we'll see with my concerns with a bit of the plot as how it will be established in Episode VIII.

J.J. Abrams, the director and the writer(s), Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Ardnt, deserve a thunderous round of applause because they brought back some of the magic into our lives maintaining the spirit with the older generation and updating series into a newer generation. J.J. Abrams has re-awakened another franchise with fantastic action sequences, stunning visual effects and an entertaining story with finally, some good and humorous dialogue. Nothing about sand or politics or anything like that. This is a great initial and well-round narrative that drives with conviction and frenetic pace that will deliver everything with heart and audacity. I cannot deny its sheer majesty of humor, fun, action and thought into the work everybody on the production team has put their creative artistry into. This is truly an amazing and fun sci-fi movie.

***1/2