I enjoyed the movie. It has it's flaws, as does the OT, so my mind glossed over them pretty easily. Yes, the rapid pace that Rey exhibits proficiency in the Force bothered me a bit, as did the lack of explanation regarding the political situation in the galaxy, but otherwise I thought the movie worked quite well.
I was so happy to see the limp slapstick humor of the prequels was gone, replaced with humor that felt so much more spontaneous and genuine. All the main characters felt believable, though Rey is a bit of a Mary Sue at this point and Captain Phasma was totally underutilized for the amount the character has been hyped in marketing. They worked well together and I am excited to see more of them in the next entry.
I see a lot of both positive and negative comments regarding Kylo Ren. Personally, I thought he was done brilliantly. It is interesting to see a Force sensitive character struggling to remain with the Dark side, and honestly I feel like that is why his tantrums were so overblown. He is acting the way he believes a Dark Jedi WOULD act, rather than the way he would honestly respond. He's trying to live up to some image of Darth Vader that he has in his head, possibly due to Snoke who I really want more info on.
As for some other questions/complaints I've seen in the thread:
The lightsaber was definitely the one Luke lost on Bespin. The hilts for that one and the green one Luke builds himself are completely different and there's no way that fact would have been overlooked in the planning for this movie. How it came to the alien lady is anyone's guess, but she seemed to have some connection to the Force, so it may have led her to it for a future purpose (like giving it to Rey). Hell, Zahn used that same lightsaber in his Thrawn trilogy and I don't remember a bunch of complaints about it then.
I believe Ren constructed that lightsaber himself before he really fully understood how to do so, which is why it looks so unrefined. Which suggests to me that he was not fully trained in the use of a lightsaber by Luke, or even by Snoke. Just because we see kids being taught how to use a lightsaber in the prequels does not mean Luke taught any of his students the same way. He had very little formal training himself, so he would not know how Jedi were trained in the past except by what Obi-Wan and Yoda taught him. Lightsaber training could have been very low on his list of priorities, so Ren may have had little to no training in it.
My assumptions for the political state of the galaxy is thus: The majority of the Republic feels everything is in order and all is well. The First Order is a remnant of the Empire that is not doing much and believed to not be a threat by most and it thus largely left alone. Leia and the other leaders of the Resistance believe otherwise and have convinced some in the Republic to fund the Resistance to fight the First Order before it can become a threat to the galaxy. The First Order meanwhile has managed to construct their superweapon in secret and use it strike out at the Republic because the location of its core is known. If I remember the movie correctly, the First Order only learns the location of the Resistance just then so they charge up the superweapon for the second shot to wipe it out. Would be nice to know if this is the case for certain, but that's my interpretation from nothing but the movie (no books, comics, etc.).
The Millennium Falcon being on Jakku is rather convenient, but Han mentioned something about it being easy to find for some reason. Something like, "If I was able to find you this easy, the First Order will be close behind," or along those lines. Still overly convenient that he and Chewie were the first to run across it, but not completely unbelievable.
Vader used the Force plenty of times without gesture, also continued to use it after ceasing a gesture, so Ren's use of the Force is perfectly in line with the previous movies.
