I more or less agree with everything Saddam has said, which is a very strange feeling to have. I went in with pretty low expectations to just have a visually-pleasing, toothless spectacle, but it was actually pretty bad IMO. Palpatine's resurrection and main villainry (complete with hanging from the live-action Animus and just going "rahh" with his fingers a few times) was such a safe, predictable, bland, cop-out choice for a climax. As was the "I am your grandfather" twist. It really does feel like a twist for the sake of having a twist, and all I could think of when I realized what it was going to be (as soon as Palpatine said "she's not who you think she is") was Spaceballs' "I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate" scene. Rey's parents literally being unimportant was so refreshing to me, the idea that the Force doesn't just follow a few specific bloodlines religiously. But Abrams, much like Shyamalan, just can't resist a twist.
I was at least hoping for some entertaining choreography, but even most of the fight scenes were cuts every second or two and flailing lightsabers with the occasional spin or flip, nothing that great. I know the prequels kind of killed that sort of fight, since the original trilogy's bushido-based(?) fights were usually pretty good, but after a few actually visually interesting skirmishes in The Last Jedi I had a new hope. Alas.
The time gimmick of the film (they're going to launch in 15 hours!!!) made me roll my eyes the second it was out of Poe's mouth, as I was just lamenting earlier the forced breakneck pace of many adventure and action films, all the dumb time-limit stakes (made me think of Spider-Man: "Watch this, he's gonna say 'you've got 24 hours'" Fisk: "You've got 24 hours!"), and all the tension was dissipated—for me, at least—on the first fake-out death with Chewie and made me realize, oh, even though this is the final film of the trilogy trilogy we're probably only going to lose a side character and Kylo, since I was pretty confident they'd kill him off the second he redeemed himself because, again, Abrams is the "can I copy your homework?" "sure just change a few words so it's not obvious" of directors/writers. A bit hyperbolic, obviously, but not as much as I'd like.
I was kind of sad they didn't take the Finn/Poe route because they genuinely had that kind of chemistry on-screen. Rey/Kylo was expected because they're both main characters of opposite genders, not that it mattered for long. The most interesting thing between them was the extreme "Force dyad" connection between them that Rian introduced. When they battled via Force connection I thought that was fantastic, and the Chekhov's gun cleverness of the lightsaber swap. I enjoyed the epic scope of some of the shots, they did a pretty good job of really emphasizing the vastness of the universe and worlds in certain scenes. The music was mostly good. I'm sure there are a few other things I enjoyed but nothing else is immediately coming to mind.
I could go on with what I didn't like, but I feel three paragraphs is enough for now. It had a few entertaining parts but for the most part I thought it was pretty bad. I'm okay with the 5/10 reviews it's been getting, though I feel more inclined towards 4. It's pretty clear this saga (with the exception of VIII) was not made for me, but as someone who grew up with the series it sucks that this janky-ass unimaginative final film is the conclusion we get. I'm curious what Lucas' final trilogy would have looked like now.