Review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) by Therantinganchor R — 13 Mar 2017

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" was an exciting sci-fi film that added well to the saga, particularly to the original Star Wars film. The well-blended action, originality, and nostalgia made this film fun to watch from beginning to end. The performances by the characters were solid. Ben Mendelsohn's portrayal of Orson Krennic was my favorite performance of the film. He was a very believable, intense villain with a decent amount of depth. However, despite how much I enjoyed this film, it definitely wasn't perfect.

My first issue with the film was the music. This had nothing to do with the fact that there was no opening crawl, I actually appreciated that. I just thought that the music was sub-par in comparison to the rest of the saga. Now, I don't think that the music was totally deplorable, it just seemed like amateur work at certain points (i.e. the beginning). I also had a hard time investing in the majority of the characters. My least favorite character was Saw Guerrera. I couldn't stand his voice and really couldn't take hime seriously at all. In fact, I disliked the majority of the first act, with the exception of the very beginning and all the action, which was great and explained Jyn's origins. My least favorite part was the giant-octopus scene. That was just weird and made Saw look like a complete joke.

Thankfully, this movie really picked up in the second and 3rd act and totally saved it for me. Despite the iffy CGI, I loved Tarkin's role in the film and Vader's scenes we're awesome. The final space battles we're a blast and looked very real with the blend of CGI/practical effects. The drama of the film also picked up in the third act, which actually had me invested in the characters, unlike the first act.

Overall, "Rogue One" was a great film that really added to the original Star Wars narrative. When I left the theater, the first thing I wanted to do was watch the original Star Wars film, which, for me, meant that this new film was a job well done!