Star Wars: The Force Awakens - J.J. Abrams

I had yet to see a J.J. Abrams film until The Force Awakens.  I had heard bad things about the Star Trek reboot, but that could have always just been typical fandom complaining (and I was quite a fan of Star Trek for a while, so I know what that can be like).

After viewing The Force Awakens, I was determined to find out if the result was just a fluke or indicative of J.J. Abrams film-making ability.

It turns out J.J. Abrams couldn't direct a film to save his life.

And, no, it's not lens flares.  I hardly ever noticed those.

If one world can describe J.J. Abram's director style, it is sloppy.  His movies are simply uneven.  They might succeed in one area only to fail completely in another, particularly in action scenes.

Comparing J.J. Abrams to Brett Ratner is an insult -- to Ratner.  Ratner has made at least three decent movies (Rush Hour, Red Dragon, and Hercules).  That's not to say they aren't without problems, but they function as movies and not just dumb spectacle.  Even George Lucas has at least one great movie (Star Wars) and possibly two other good ones (THX 1138, American Graffitti).

But also notice that Ratner and Lucas have a greater breadth of genre.  As listed above, Ratner has made a buddy-cop action comedy, a detective-thriller, and a historical fantasy-adventure movie.  Lucas has made an sci-fi/fantasy-adventure, a sci-fi dystopian future, and a teen comedy.

J.J. Abrams just keeps making the same type of movie over and over:  action movies combined with sci-fi and a bit of mystery.

The thing is, he's not even good at action!  In 2015, Kingsman: The Secret Service and Mad Max: Fury Road were both far better action movies than The Force Awakens.  His action scenes are hardly ever exciting.  They lack impact and seem to exist only to fill time.

Simply put, J.J. Abrams makes big dumb action movies, with bad action.  He's found success because such movies are in style right now:  Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy are very similar in terms of mind-numbing action to an Abrams movie.  He's a faddish director whose movies won't be remembered once the fad ends.  It's appalling that he was chosen to spearhead the Star Wars revival.

If I were to rank J.J. Abrams' movies, it would be this:

1. Star Trek (2009) - In a surprise, some of the action in this Abrams film is actually good (such as Kirk running around with swollen hands, the Vulcan destruction sequence, the end fight), has some good characters (Old Spock), and proper character focus (Chekov, Sulu, and others are there, do something, but aren't a drag).  It still has problems with some bad action (monster on Vulcan's moon), plot contrivances (Kirk's mother giving birth on the ship at that exact moment), and forcing Kirk to be the captain at film's end.  It's middling at best.
2. Super 8 - It has good emotional scenes and insane action sequences that belong in a war movie.  I couldn't place the tone of the movie.  The focus of the movie should have been film-making with an alien mystery
3. Star Trek:  Into Darkness - Strip everything good from the first film.  Now it's an even dumber plot with dumber action.  It's #2 only because the momentum from the first one helps it.
4. The Force Awakens
5. Mission Impossible 3 - an action movie with terrible action.  Not once did I feel invested in the fight scenes that just come off as realistic to the point of boredom,  There is a mystery/thriller plot as well that's fairly obvious.

I'm not firm on this ordering.  I could swap #2 and #3 (Super 8 was slightly more creative, but its tonal dissonance was even more jarring than Into Darkness) as well as #4 and #5 (thus making The Force Awakens the worst movie J.J. Abrams has ever made).

On top of that, Abrams movies aren't even good by the standards of their respective franchises (or even similar movies/TV shows):

• Star Trek Beyond was the best of the new Trek movies.  It was fun, the plot made sense, the story was serviceable, and the action and character interaction were good.
• Mission Impossible 3 was the worst Mission Impossible movie and earned the least at the box office.  The preceding and following movies all had a good grasp of the tone and action the series should have.  On top of that, MI2 and MI3 are almost direct copies of each other, but MI3 is simply handled worse (worse love interest/chemistry, worse action, worse mystery of the "Rabbit's Foot" and what the stakes are).
• Stranger Things is far better than Super 8.  It has better characters and far more understated action sequences.
• The Force Awakens is around Prequel-quality.  Various Expanded Universe books, comics, and video games beat all of them.

Some people think George Lucas shouldn't have directed the Prequels, instead acting as Producer on them.  I'd argue the same goes for J.J. Abrams.  His directorial skills are sub-par, but his list of producer credits include:

• Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation.
• 10 Cloverfield Lane.
• Star Trek Beyond.
• Westworld.

From this list, it's clear that J.J. Abrams is good at finding people with talent and giving them the opportunity to succeed.  He shouldn't be directing movies.  For the love of God, he also shouldn't be writing them.  Gone Fishin' and Armageddon should have taught us that.