5) The Muddled And Underwhelming Third Act
After an impressive, exhilarating hour-and-a-half, The Force Awakens loses its footing somewhat for the third act. It’s supposed to be the climax to wrap everything up – the relationship between Kylo Ren and Han Solo, the Resistance and the threat of Starkiller Base, Finn and Rey’s difficult individual backgrounds – but instead it all just ends up feeling a bit muddled.
The battle of Starkiller Base becomes almost an afterthought, as the film gives short shrift to the X-Wing assault and focuses on what’s going on between Kylo, Rey, Finn and Han, none of whom really have their stories satisfyingly sewn up.
It’s all rather underwhelming (the less said about Mark Hamill’s quasi-appearance the better), while one of the aforementioned characters leaves the film in a particularly unsatisfying way.