Now I know these are supposed to be spoiler-free reviews, but if you are one of the few handful of people who have seen that small little indie film called Star Wars A New Hope, then you probably already know how this film ends. Yes, Rogue One is the first in what will become a never ending cycle of Star Wars spin-off films produced by Disney, the film actually serves as an inbetweenquel for the prequels and the original trilogy and answers that age old question of who exactly put in that friggin’ thermal exhaust port that leads directly to the reactor system?
Set just before the events of A New Hope, we follow a group of not just unlikely heroes but a group of morally and ethically dubious characters who include Oscar winner Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor who’s kind of a really brutal Mexican version of Han Solo along with the bromance couple that is Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang and scene-stealer Alan Tudyk’s reprogrammed Imperial Droid K-2SO. Their mission: to steal the plans for the Death Star and get them back to the rebel base - so as I said, if you’ve seen the original trilogy, then you know what happens in this film. But that is not to be seen as a bad thing here.
Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: it is kind of weird watching a Star Wars film that doesn’t feature the opening crawl, but also, it’s kind of awesome too. One of the biggest concerns going into this film was that it was going to be another nostalgia-ridden project more focused on reminding you that it’s a Star Wars film than creating an original story. Five minutes in, and there’s nothing to worry about. This film is dark, gritty and still has some well placed humour. We have heroes that aren’t afraid to kill and aren’t afraid to sacrifice others to aid their own escape - fingers crossed they don’t release a special edition twenty years down the track where Andor doesn’t shoot first.
The film is also filled with some great fresh moments including a great Donnie Yen fight sequence that echoes the choreography and humour of Hong Kong action films that he cut his teeth with. Whilst Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO is the most likeable Droid Star Wars has ever produced, with a dry sense of humour that just has me wishing for a spin-off movie where his character just does stand-up comedy and asks what is the deal with Imperial Tie-Fighter peanuts.
Director Gareth Edwards, along with the rest of the crew, have done a fantastic job designing the worlds, the costumes, the creatures, the ships and the technology throughout. It feels like the whole film has just fallen out of a long lost Ralph McQuarrie sketch book - there’s a great balance of giving us something new, but still making it feel like it belongs with the films of the 70’s. Much like Abrams’ The Force Awakens, this movie knows when to use practical effects and when to use CGI - with just one exception. As many will know, this film reintroduces us to Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin, however instead of recasting like they did with almost every other character featured from the original trilogy, we get a full-blown CGI rendering of Peter Cushing that just can’t seem to push past that uncanny-valley look and feel that plagues so many CGI human characters. It’s my only real complaint of the film because it really does take you out of the movie, especially when CGI creepy-boy is CGI acting text to Aussie Ben Mendelssohn who gives a solid performance as the film’s big bad.
The film is one part heist movie, one part war movie and when I say war movie, I mean that this may be the first time in a series called Star Wars where we actually get to see “real” war - not cute little plush toys fighting Stormtroopers in the forest, not CGI armies falling by the dozens, I mean actual gritty knuckle-down drag out battles on the beach whilst AT-ATs, Tie-Fighters and X-Wings serve as a backdrop to this more grounded battle.
Overall though, your enjoyment of the film will most likely be dependant on how much you have built this film up in your head and how much this film maybe meets or doesn’t meet those expectations. Some people may be disappointed that certain characters weren’t in the film as long as they had hoped, some may have hoped for interactions between different characters that never occurred, whilst others may be disappointed by the lack of certain Star Wars-y things. For me though, knowing that we are going to get new Star Wars films at least once a year from now until the end of time itself, my main worry was always that the novelty of Star Wars would wear off because of the sudden high frequency of films. Looking at how fresh Rogue One feels, it gives me a new hope for these new Star Wars films having some real legs.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story gets Four out of Five Stars (or Four out of Five creepy CGI Tarkin’s fighting overrated plush toys in a forest)
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