Finally, 'The Force Awakens': JJ Abrams does right by 'Star Wars'

NO SPOILERS HERE. For hardcore fans of the original Star Wars trilogy, and I count myself among them, there's been this needling frustration, a feeling that a great new Star Wars film could be made, but series creator George Lucas had simply forgotten how. Now that he's handed over the reins to J.J. Abrams (and a host of other new directors to come), the films are finally being stripped of his worst impulses -- most specifically: humorless dialogue, unengaging stories and characters without character.

After finally getting to see Abrams' long awaited follow-up to Return of the Jedi, I am relieved to say that Star Wars is back with a vengeance.

Is The Force Awakens the best Star Wars film ever? No. I would even put it just a notch below the original three, if for no other reason than that I have zero quibbles with those films and I have a couple tiny ones with this one. But Abrams has really done something remarkable here, and he totally deserves legendary status forever because of it.

He has managed to create a totally worthy Star Wars film that lives up to more hype than perhaps any other film in history, a story that both pays tribute to an expands upon probably the best trilogy in sci-fi and maybe all of cinema. He's created wonderful, memorable new characters (my favorites of which are John Boyega as Finn and Daisy Ridley as Rey) and provided a terrific platform for one of my favorite actors of all time -- the legendary Harrison Ford -- to do what he does best.

There are already the grumpy inevitable detractors who are obsessing over the few flaws in the movie. This is the age we live in, where no one is ever universally satisfied by anything. But I would like to deflate the one most consistent gripe without spoiling anything. Yes, the film is very reverential and referential of its predecessors. But quite frankly that was what was wrong with Lucas' prequels. It was as if he had contempt for what we all loved about the originals.

Coming over 30 years after Episode VI and with all the fan anticipation that comes with that, of course Abrams was going to load The Force Awakens with "Easter eggs" and I loved it. I will say that this new film probably won't win over those who weren't already converted and quite a bit in the movie will make zero sense to people unfamiliar with the series. This is a movie made by a fan for the fans, and I think that's a unique and glorious thing.

Also, even The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi had callbacks to earlier moments in the series, so it's really not a big deal to me that The Force Awakens revisits some of the iconography of the first films.

In fact, the theme of the films is arguably that history is cyclical, hence the rise of a New Order. Villains rise, heroes fall, heroes rise again and villains fall.

From the very first sequence, The Force Awakens announces itself as the farthest thing from the prequels, totally within the same DNA as the original trilogy and also something totally fresh. Like Mad Max: Fury Road, Creed and other recent successful reboots of long dormant franchises, it's clear first and foremost that this was a movie made with care, with attention to detail and desire to present a richly developed story with accessible character arcs.

Keep in mind, Abrams achieves this with an incredibly fast pace, dizzying and dazzling special effects and the requisite crew of alien/robot creatures (I loved BB-8, too). Movies like this never get Oscars -- it's such a nakedly commercial product that critics almost always hold their nose while admitting they loved it. But this film truly deserves consideration -- and repeat viewing -- there are several layers and levels on which it works, and like the original trilogy there are many little moments that are ripe for rediscovery and appreciation.

The ending, without spoiling it, is the series biggest cliffhanger since Empire Strikes Back, and it will be simply torturous waiting to see how the story pans out. In the meantime all Star Wars fans should rejoice -- at the performances of Boyega, Ridley, Ford and Adam Driver -- who makes an excellent villain as Kylo Ren, at a fantasy universe which feels real again and commercial filmmaking of the highest order.

The Force Awakens is easily one of the best films of the year, a total classic, and a movie that had me cheering and smiling for nearly its entire running time.