The Empire has gained control over the galaxy and only the Rebel Alliance can oppose them. However, there's very little they can do against the Empire's newest and most dangerous weapon unless a team of unique individuals dares to finds its weakness.
Well, this happened sooner than expected.
It almost seems like yesterday when I was talking about The Force Awakens, the newest direction that the Stars Wars franchise took and reinvigorated the interest of the fans. Nonetheless, Rogue One is a stand-alone film that doesn't have that much of a connection to last one in the line but it still brings a bigger perspective into the whole series and certainly builds into the already established continuity. Directed by Gareth Edwards, how does the movie fare into this whole new vision?
First of all, I'm going say a lot of SPOILERS here since is very hard to not talk about the story without pretty much delivering the final scenes.
I actually was very ignorant about when this particular story takes place since I didn't pay much attention to the teasers because I wanted to watch it for myself but once that the movie starts it takes a few minutes to make you realize that this movie in fact serves as a direct prequel to the original trilogy but not as distant as in The Phantom Menace/The Attack of the Clones/The Revenge of the Sith.
This tale introduces us to Jyn Erso who is the daughter of Galen Erso, the scientist who designed the Death Star and was forced to leave his daughter once that the Empire kidnapped him to finish his work. Jyn is joined by a group of interesting people with their own sorts of motivations to help her into her mission of stopping the Death Star no matter the cost.
Yeah, once that you check the premise and find out when this story is suited you start asking yourself the question: "Wait a minute, if this happened immediately before A New Hope then why we haven't seen these characters in it?".
Then you connect the dots and then go all: "Ooooohhhhh".
This is a tragic story people. One that doesn't really have a happy ending, at least not for the main cast or I guess it would be more appropriate to say at least not a happy ending in a traditional way. The protagonists of this movie are going into a suicide mission where there is no hope for survival and the only way to succeed is to bring the Death Star's weakness to the Rebels so it will eventually be destroyed by Luke Skywalker in A New Hope.
The fact that you quickly realize where this is going is not necessarily a bad thing since it all depends on the execution and to be fair, in that regard the flick does a solid job at delivering an entertaining journey for the most part.
The plot is very straightforward and doesn't present many twists aside from the initial one but it does have a lot of enjoyable scenes, full of good battles and intense special effects that guarantee that you will be invested in the action during the whole time.
However, what really shines in this movie are the characters.
And I'm not even talking about the protagonists. Jyn played by Felicity Jones is a serviceable at best main character, she doesn't have much personality beyond her background and mission unfortunately, in fact I would say that she's less interesting than Rey (and the fact that they're pretty similar look-wise doesn't help matters). I wish she would have gotten more charisma from the director and writers since Jones herself doesn't do a bad job, is just that she has very little to work with.
Cassian Andor played by Diego Luna suffers from the same exact problems. Not much personality beyond his background and is a shame since next to Jyn, he's the character who has the most screen time which makes his scenes very boring to watch.
Other members of the supporting cast though? They're great.
Let's start with by far the most entertaining character in the film: The droid K-2SO. He's Cassian's partner and it seems like he extracted all the personality from Cassian and injected it on himself. He has tons of fun and great lines over the course of the story and is always a joy to watch what he's going to come up with. He's probably the best robot we have seen in the franchise, certainly much better than C-3PO.
Chirrun Imwe portrayed by Donnie Yen who is a blind warrior who believes in the Force more than anything else. His segments are also quite enjoyable and he even has a few fun lines here and there. Although I think is a wasted opportunity that based on his premise they never allowed him to actually use the Force, it would have created a satisfying ending before, you know, his ending. Is hard to talk about Chirrun without talking about his partner Baze Malbus who is a cynical Rebel who constantly mocks Chirrun for his faith although they do share a really close friendship (and there might be a few hints that it was something more?).
Sadly, Riz Ahmed as Bodhi Rook is not as engaging since once again, he doesn't have much charisma aside from his motivation. Same case for Mads Mikkelsen as Galen Erso and is damn shame since Mikkelsen keeps getting these roles where he can't exploit his own personality to actually bring life to the characters (However, he was still better used here than in Doctor Strange). Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera has a few scenes but he shows a solid presence in most of them and makes you intrigued into his past since he supposedly appeared in other Star Wars stories from the past. Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic is not strong enough as an antagonist and he mostly is in the movie to show how his plans are foiled.
Speaking about villains, Darth Vader does a much better job than Krennic. Yes, Vader is here and he's thankfully portrayed as frightening as in the original trilogy, great job at capturing his presence.
Just as I already mentioned, all of these people go into a suicide mission and once that happens is when the story gets particularly good. The early segments where not bad but a bit slow. On the other hand, the final part of the movie is where the action and most intense moments occur and we see how all the heroes tragically fall one by one and they do so in a way that is mostly satisfying due to their motivations and all contribute to bring the info about the Death Star's weakness.
One thing that I can appreciate is that they didn't force a romance between Jyn and Cassian (Which would have been pretty boring since they were the blandest members of the cast). I mean, there were hints around the end but is mostly left to viewers' interpretation and it works for the better thanks to it.
Then come the final scene when Princess Leia played by a rejuvenated Carrie Fisher proclaiming that the info the Rogue One team gave team meant "Hope" which is certainly a fitting manner to conclude the movie.
I got to be honest here, I don't think is a great movie. I personally don't even think that is as good as The Force Awakens (which I thought it was a solid, yet not amazing entry). It does a decent job at creating an enjoyable enough story which developes a bit more of the mythos but I don't think the plot really justifies being turned into a film, this same story could have been told in comic book, cartoon or novel form and it would have lost nothing (Actually, those could have expanded some of the characters even more). Is not really epic in scale and is indeed just "a side story" that is not as relevant as the rest from the series.
Nonetheless, is still a serviceable tale with a quite unique and bleak tone that is pretty rare from this franchise (at least speaking about the films). Plus, it offers a distinctive cast of characters who are not as special as the protagonists we usually see which again, I really appreciate.
Overall, if you're a Star Wars fan who wants to know more details about the first trilogy then you will probably enjoy this. However, this is not recommendable for new fans since it doesn't offer much aside from that.
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