Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review — Putting the War in Star Wars

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story marks the first anthology, non-numbered film in Disney’s Star Wars franchise. Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened last Christmas under heavy pressure to put the franchise back on track after George Lucas vomited out Episodes I, II, and III, much to fan and critical disgust. After the resounding success of the Force Awakens, Rogue One was allowed to take some major risks never before seen in Star Wars, and they almost all pay off with resounding triumph.

The film opens with scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) and his family living peacefully on their farm far from civilization, when they are visited by the Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), the Empire’s director of weapons research. Krennic explains to Erso that he is to come with him to resume work on a new, planet-destroying super-weapon, which we later come to know as the original Star Wars’ Death Star.

Erso is eventually captured by the Empire, but his daughter, Jyn, hides away before she is rescued and raised by Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera.

Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, the film’s main character.

The story picks back up years later as Jyn (Felicity Jones) is rescued by the Rebel Alliance, and sent to Planet Jedha to speak with Gerrera in hopes of finding her father, to put an end to the construction of the Death Star. She takes off with Rebel fighter Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and K-2SO, a former Imperial droid now repurposed to fight for the Rebels (Alan Tudyk).

Erso sends a defected Empire pilot, Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), to Gerrera’s home planet of Jedha with a message for Gerrera. Jyn gets to Gerrera just in time though, and sees the message from her father. Galen had tricked the Empire, and had placed a weak point within the Death Star for the Rebels to exploit.

The Alliance would need the schematics for the Death Star, however, and they had to be recovered from the Empire base on Planet Scarif. The rest of the film revolves around the team’s fight to retrieve the plans from the base.

The performances in this film range from charming and funny, to bland and uninspired, all the way down to wasted potential and missing screen time. Felicity Jones, whose credits include The Theory of Everything and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, does a passable job as main character Jyn, but she didn’t really have much to work with. Jyn is very brooding and almost grumpy at points throughout the film, so Jones did what she could with what she had.

Diego Luna charmed as Cassian Andor, even if his character made some questionable decisions as the film carried on. Perhaps most refreshing about these two characters was that there was hardly a semblance of a romantic subplot between the two. They were two soldiers in a war who had to go through grit and mud and dirt to get a job done, and didn’t have time for romantic hogwash. It was nice to see this film stray from the Disney fairy tale love story that seems to infiltrate all of their films.

Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO was hilarious and was the comic relief of the film. His one-liners were genuinely funny, even if it was almost all ruined by the obligatory “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” towards the end. Donnie Yen’s martial artist Chirrut Imwe was about as badass as you’d expect any Donnie Yen character to be. However, when he wasn’t kicking ass and taking names in fight scenes, his lines seemed a bit off. It was almost as if he was just talking to the actors in normal conversation rather than acting in a blockbuster Star Wars movie. The cast was rounded out by Rebel warrior Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) and Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) who both put in solid performances in minor roles.

Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO, a very funny droid, who is a lot more useful and less whiny than C-3PO.

However, one of my major complaints about the film was its misuse and underuse of two of its major headlining actors, Mikkelsen and Whitaker. Now, any of my friends will tell you that I have a major man crush on Mikkelsen, but he is legitimately a fantastic actor. His run as Dr. Hannibal Lecter on NBC’s Hannibal gave us one of the most truly bone-chilling performances in television over the last 10 years.

Whitaker is one of, if not the most recognizable actor in the cast of Rogue One, yet he and Mikkelsen combine for a meager amount of screen time. I think over half of Whitaker’s overall screen time was shown off in trailers. These two stars were severely underused.

That being said, Rogue One has nothing to do with the characters. It is not a character-driven narrative. The main character of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is war. It’s a nasty, in-the-trenches war, featuring all-out land battles, espionage, the best space battles in the series since Return of the Jedi, and death. Lots of death. Like, a shocking amount of death for a Disney movie. As in, I’d legitimately think of covering my children’s eyes at one specific point in the movie.

This isn’t a bad thing though. On the contrary: The fact that Rogue One is a war story, rather than a character-driven story, is its greatest strength. Jyn, Cassian, K2SO, and the others do a serviceable job keeping the audience engaged through its admittedly slow, muddied first half hour or so. But the fact of the situation is that these characters are basically just regular soldiers in a much greater war that is enveloping the galaxy.

The audience genuinely feels and cares for these characters, not because they are overly interesting, charismatic, or likable, but because it’s hard not to feel a sense of gloominess watching this band of ragtag Rebel fighters about to infiltrate an Empire base. You get a sinking feeling in your stomach because you know how the final act is going to pan out.

The film takes a little while to hit its stride, as the first half hour or so is spent hopping from unfamiliar planet to unfamiliar planet, and from unfamiliar character to unfamiliar character. But once the final act rolls around, the film is running on all cylinders. The build-up really pays off in what will go down as the greatest battle in Star Wars history, in my personal opinion.

Rogue One’s ending battle was one of the finest in the Star Wars series.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was a resounding success as the first anthology film in the Star Wars franchise. While no one really knew what to expect from it coming in, it took some serious risks that pay off massively. With just the right mixture of fan service and new ideas, Rogue One is a massive triumph for Disney, who seems to have struck gold again with non-numbered films for one of its cash cow franchises.

Final Score — 9/10

Pros- Takes risks with new things while also servicing previous fans. Large-scale battle was insane, Tells a great war story. Final act feels like a massive payoff.

Cons- Slight misuse of its highest-billing actors. Slow first act.