Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is enjoyable for what it is, a stand-alone film that fills in the minute details of that one paragraph in the opening crawl of Episode IV.
“It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.”
Rogue One contain many elements that Star Was fans have come to love over the years, massive space battles, amazing visual effects, a story of the little guy rising up against an overwhelming oppressive power.
However, the movie misses a few key elements from previous Star Wars movies that made you want to come back for more, mainly the mystery behind the characters. Things like is Darth Vader really Luke’s father, or who are Rey’s parents? The characters in this film while enjoyable are pretty cut and dried. What you see is what you get. If you are familiar with Star Wars and seen the main trailers for this movie, you can pretty much predict everything that will happen to them from beginning to end, and while some might say of course it’s predictable because I’ve seen Episode IV, it still makes for a less engaging film.
The movie does contain a number of nice easter eggs for die-hard Star Wars fans and brings back quite a few familiar faces, some almost eerily so thanks to the miracles of CGI.
Most of the cast do decent jobs with their characters. The main star Felicity Jones who plays the character Jyn Erso, a rebellious youth looking to find her father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) who has known ties with the Empire, portrays a tough leading lady worthy of following in the footsteps (or preceding depending on how you look at it) Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). The most memorable characters in the film though are K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) who is a reprogrammed Imperial Droid that blurts out pretty much anything that comes to mind and Chirrut Îmwe (Wen Jiang) the closest thing this movie has to a Jedi.
My least favorite characters in the film were Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) who never really seems to be able to emotionally connect with his fellow cast members or the audience. Han Solo he ain’t. I also thought the film’s leading bad guy Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelssohn) was a little on the dry side. A Grand Moff Tarkin (who is in this film) wannabe who just never seems to cut the mustard.
Another character I was a little disappointed with was Darth Vader, one many were probably looking forward to the most. It was hard to put my finger on it, but while I love James Earl Jones, he just didn’t seem to portray the menacing evil Dark Lord Of The Sith he once did in the original movies. Some may disagree with me on this, but I just didn’t get the feeling this was someone who would crush your throat with a thought as oppose to looking at you twice.
Despite the predictability of the story and the ending, if you are a Star Wars fan I think there is enough here for you to enjoy and you will walk out of the theater happy. For those who have never really gotten into the mythos of Star Wars (and it’s hard to fathom the idea that there are those who haven’t), then you might want to find something else to see this weekend.
Grade From A Star Wars Fanboy: B
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