Critic Reviews for Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Moviebuff.com

It's a carefully-crafted dance of nuance that balances a bit of everything

Reagan Gavin Rasquinha, The Times of India

I will be revisiting 'The Force Awakens', but the only prior installment it fully surpasses is The Phantom Menace

Barry Wurst, Maui Time

'The Force Awakens', is more of a bridge than a completely new era, but it successfully lets audience live again in a galaxy far, far away

Matt Goldberg, Collider

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', suggests the work of a filmmaker who faced the exciting yet unenviable task of partially reassembling one of the most beloved ensembles in movie history

Justin Chang, Variety

A new wine in an old bottle taking new characters while staying true to its roots

PipingHotViews Source , PipingHotViews

'The Force Awakens', realises and capitalises on the fact that its closeness to the original trilogy by George Lucas is its greatest strength, and scenes that will take you back to those films are clear winners here

Rohini Nair, Deccan Chronicle

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', is a fun film and well worth checking out, it’s also the right course correction for the series as they move away from the prequels

Scott Chitwood, ComingSoon.net

It definitely kicks-off a new franchise that should both please veteran fans and appeal to a whole new audience, and it’s hard not to walk out of this and not be excited to see what else the new team at Lucasfilm has in store for us

Chris Bumbray, JoBlo.com

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', a literal throwback of a popcorn movie that won’t make anyone forget the franchise predecessors

Bill Wine, CBS Local

If you go in with your expectations adjusted accordingly, you’ll very likely have a blast

Eric Eisenberg, Cinema Blend

Everything you need to know about the movie is precisely where it belongs, in the movie, just see it, you’ll love it

Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal

For Disney’s record-setting 'Star Wars', reboot, the Force isn’t strong enough to stave off Internet haters

Matt Donnelly, The Wrap

'The Force Awakens', takes a timeless story and adds cutting-edge visual effects and a dash of nostalgia to go

Juhi Matta, BookMyShow

Thank the Maker the Galaxy still has life in it.

Brooke Corso, The Monitor

The film moves along at a breezy pace and the ending will make you wish Episode VIII was arriving sooner than May 2017

Tiffany Kelly, Ars Technica UK

It’s enough to say that they’re here, and it’s good to see them

Mick LaSalle, SFGate

'The Force Awakens', makes you feel good about “Star Wars” again

Tom Long, The Detroit News

The hugely anticipated 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', stirs more to life than just The Force

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out

JJ Abrams re-invents the franchise with new energy weaving a great sequel

Sajid, Cinema Glitz

What Abrams has done is strip Star Wars down to its core components, rearranging the stuff people liked about the original trilogy and getting rid of what they hated about the rest

AA Dowd, AV Club

The Force is back with us

Shubhra Gupta, Indian Express

This one’s a solid beginning, and the Force, it’s safe to say, will be with it

Kurt Loder, Reason

Abrams has brought back what was great and merged it with compelling and likable new characters who can carry it forward

Pete Hammond, Deadline

'Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens', steers pop-culture's most beloved sci-fi saga in an exhilarating new direction

John Wenzel, The Denver Post

For Star Wars to be a meaningful cultural force going forward, the movie had to give us a new generation of heroes for a new generation of fans, I’m glad to be one of them

Charley Locke, Wired

Despite a slow opening half, 'The Force Awakens', novelization proves to be a fun, faithful supplement to the movie

Sean Keane, Daily News America

The gang's all here, even though it takes some longer than others to reappear

News Ok Source, News Ok

It’s a good adventure yarn, a synergy of nostalgic notes and cutting edge notions

Michael S Goldberger, New Jersey Hills

The series creeps closer to the dark side and ever farther away from the light unto which it was born

Randy Steinberg, Blast Magazine

It wows us with its big action and sparkly energy, it treats its characters with more dignity and complexity than ever before

Erik Kain, Forbes

This is a 'Star Wars', for the original fans, as well as the next generation

Barbara Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post Gazette

An exhilarating ride, filled with archetypal characters with plausible psychologies, melodramatic confrontations fueled by soaring emotions, and performances that can be described as good, period, rather than good, for 'Star Wars'

Matt Zoller Seitz, Roger Ebert

'The Force Awakens', leaves you yearning for more

Jeremy Kirk, First Showing

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', is an entertaining adventure film, at turns funny and exciting with some occasionally effective melodrama and often shoddy plotting

Joshua Starnes, ComingSoon.net

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', is the movie it was promised to be, with great new characters, a respect for the original trilogy and a strong understanding of what makes this franchise click with fans

Terri Schwartz, IGN

With a promising cast and an able director who already is a big fan of the series its safe to say that the sequels would do even better

IndiaGlitz Source, IndiaGlitz

J.J. Abrams sweeps us out of the black hole of George's Lucas' trilogy of paralyzingly dull Star Wars prequels and into a brave new world

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

'The Force Awakens', is a high-energy space opera stuffed with dramatic character swings and a tangible line between good and evil designed to leave viewers cheering and worrying in equal measure

Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects

'The Force Awakens', is ridiculous and melodramatic and sentimental of course, but exciting and brimming with energy and its own kind of generosity

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

There’s probably too much in this galaxy that’s very familiar, but still plenty new over which to obsess, it’s still Star Wars

Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian

It’s a good start for a new franchise that we hope will start rolling along under its own steam instead of having to keep fans of the old series happy

Rick Romancito, The Taos News

Episode VII is definitely a step toward the right side, it sure does feel… forced

Sen City Source, Sen City