Here's Why This Vatican Newspaper Hate the New 'Star Wars' Movie

At the rate the glowing reviews - and box office tills - are going, it appears there's many to like about "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." However, the Vatican's film critic seem to think otherwise.

The Holy See's "semi-official" newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, recently published a piece written by the publication's anonymous film critic, who slammed the J.J. Abrams flock as "pale imitations of the long-running space saga's traditional baddies," The Guardian said.

"The new director's set-up fails most spectacularly in its representation of evil, meaning the negative characters," the movie reviewer wrote. "Darth Vader and above all the Emperor Palpatine were two of the most efficient villains in that genre of American cinema."

"The counterpart of Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, wears a mask merely to emulate his predecessor, while the character who needs to substitute the Emperor Palpatine as the incarnation of supreme evil represents the most serious defect of the film," the critic went on. "Without revealing anything about the character, all we will say is that it is the clumsiest and tackiest result you can obtain from computer graphics."

The review also said that the new installment was "sloppiest current action films derived from the world of video games," NBC News noted. It also compared the film to Nolan's "Batman," which was called a "classy reboot" - something that "The Force Awakens" reportedly isn't.

Further, a source from the Vatican reportedly told the news source that the review wouldn't have much impact on Pope Francis as he doesn't really watch films.

Some media outlets have appeared to poke fun at the anonymous reviewer's outright criticism of the movie, although a number seemed to agree with some of the critic's comments.

CNET's Chris Matyszczyk said that the critic's statement about the new, ancient-looking villain is "right."

"When Kylo takes off his mask to reveal the slightly twisted boy who cavorts with Lena Dunham in HBO series 'Girls,' he looks like a teen who's borrowed dad's car without telling him," Matyszczyk also said of the younger villain.

Vanity Fair had since identified the critic as Emilio Ranzato, which it called "the Simon Cowell of film criticism."

Apparently, his scathing review seemed to have not dented the film's effect on Italian audiences, as the movie earned about $10 million in Italy alone and even was recognized as the top December film based on opening earnings, Variety said.

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