Review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) by Samichsupernova — 17 Dec 2016

This film was entertaining but ultimately adds up to less than the sum of its parts. The Good: The insane (amount and quality of) action, cinematography, and some performances. Felicity Jones and Ben Mendohlson did a lot with weak material and were seriously great. Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen and Diego Luna's characters are cool. Certain cameos work really well. There's some poetry and clever visual ideas in the prolonged conflict in the third act, which almost makes up for the terrible first 1/2 of the movie (Jyn dispatches Stormtroopers with a stick... OK...). The action kind of feels like a kid playing with Star Wars action figures, in both good and bad ways. Oh and there's a monkey Rebel gunner.

The Bad: Everything else. The script tries to be darker and more realistic but there's hardly any depths of conflict beyond "good guys" VS "bad guys" where one good guy is only slightly more morally compromised than the others. There's no character development whatsoever. The story overall is paint-by-the-numbers. A total missed opportunity there. Forest Whitaker's character dies early on for no reason. The score is weak. There is little dramatic drive because we all know how this story will end. Too much "fan-service" and nostalgia. Callbacks to the original trilogy can only go so far.

The Ugly: How much money this is going to make, undeservedly. Unless you REALLY need to see the epic finale on the big screen, just wait for it to hit home video.