Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Review

"I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me."

-Chirrut Îmwe

Set immediately before the events of A New Hope, Jyn Erso is rescued from an Imperial labor camp by the Rebel Alliance and coerced into assisting the Rebels on a mission to track down a defecting Imperial pilot, Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), who has information on the Empire's new super weapon, the Death Star, which was built by Jyn's father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsohn).  As she sees the evil the Empire is capable of up close, Jyn is inspired to join the Rebellion and forms a ragtag group called Rogue One to steal the Death Star's plans from an Imperial stronghold.

What Works:

The biggest compliment I can give Rogue One is about it's final battle on Scarif.  It's a very long sequence and it's very exciting.  If feels akin to something like Saving Private Ryan.  It's darker and grittier than anything we've seen before in the Star Wars series.  Plus, these are all regular people fighting this battle.  There are no Jedi or lightsabers, just a group of people fighting for what the believe in, with what they have.  Rogue One is the only movie in the series that actually feels like a war movie, and it's pretty refreshing.

I'm also very glad they took the "kill off everyone" approach.  It would have felt very cheap and unbelievable to have any of Rogue One survive, and I know their initial plan was to let some of them live, but it was actually really satisfying to watch all of the main characters get killed off, yet still achieve their goal.

I need to mention Alan Tudyk, who played the droid K-2SO, and who was the best character in the movie.  He's the comic relief and a bit of an a**hole.  Since this movie is so dark, it was nice to have him around to lighten the mood now and again, but his wit felt in-line with the tone of the film.

Rogue One also retroactively makes A New Hope a stronger movie by fixing the Death Star's weakness plot-hole.  I always thought that the Rebels found the Death Star's weakness rather conveniently, so I like how the weakness was put there intentionally by Galen.  This fixes one of the few flaws in A New Hope, so that wins Rogue One some points.

Finally, I know I said earlier I enjoyed not having any lightsabers in the Scarif battle, but man, when Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) shows up in that hallway, it was pretty amazing.  This is the closest scene to a horror movie that we've ever seen in this series, and man did it deliver.  Seeing Darth Vader in action was a lot of fun, and they didn't overdo it by any means.  The sequence is not only terrifying, but it also leads into A New Hope very nicely.

What Sucks:

My biggest complaint is that most of the characters are underdeveloped.  The main group of Rogue One is fine for the most part, but none of them, besides K-2SO, are super interesting.  I think a few more scenes of character development and backstory could have really helped.

Finally, the fan service was a bit much for me.  If they had dialed it back just a smidge, I would have been happier.  The biggest one was Jyn and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) running into the thugs from Mob Eisley that Luke and Obi-Wan encounter in A New Hope.  They felt very shoehorned in and completely unnecessary .

Verdict:

Out of all five of the prequel films, I have to say Rogue One is the strongest.  The character development is weak and the fan-service is a bit much, but the final battle is epic.  I loved how dark and gritty it was and how they weren't afraid to kill off our main characters, plus they fixed a plot-hole from A New Hope, and throwing Darth Vader was a stroke of genius.  Rogue One has got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good