Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (’16 review)

4 outta 5

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a unique entry into the Star Wars franchise.   Aside from the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars film (which was weak but led into a fantastic TV series) and TV movies about Ewoks (don’t ask), this is the first proper big budget theatrical Star Wars release that doesn’t concern the doings of Jedi people named Skywalker. And by jumping backwards in the timeline, Rogue One is the fourth prequel to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.  But what makes this entry distinct is taking a war movie format and pasting it into the Star Wars universe.  It has a bit of a slow first half but comes together for a crackerjack finale. 

Jyn Esro (Felicity Jones) is the daughter of Galen (Mads Mikkelsen) designer of the planet killing Imperial battle station, the Death Star, who has been captured by Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn).  A defecting Imperial, Rook (Riz Ahmed), is delivering a message to Rebel militant Saw (Forrest Whitaker) which leads to Jyn being recruited by the Rebels.  Her mission companions are the droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), assassin Cassian (Diego Luna), blind Force-worshiping mystic Chirrut (Donnie Yen) and firepower packing Baze (Wen Jiang). They have to find Galen and the Death Star schematics before the awesome destructive power of the Death Star overtakes the galaxy.         

Jyn is yet another Star Wars main character without parents in a long history of Star Wars characters without parents.  At the start, Jyn is mostly compromised of snarky comments but reveals more as the film goes on.  What Jones does exceptionally well is showing turmoil simmering underneath Jyn’s calloused exterior.  Mikklesen’s few scenes as Jalen are pretty heart-wrenching which gives Jyn’s quest emotional stakes. 

As in most Star Wars movies, there’s a trio at the core of the film compromised of Jyn, Cassian and the droid K-2SO.  Luna has some stirring moments as Cassian goes from assassin to not being an assassin anymore just … because.  It’s never explained why he changes his ideology but is dramatically effective.  It’s both a detriment and a compliment that the droid is probably the most well rounded character but that’s okay because Tudyk is hilarious and his exit is fantastic.  Rook is mostly just frazzled but Ahmed finds moments of humour and the interplay between Jiang and Yen is great.  As the blind maybe-Jedi, maybe-not-Jedi Yen has a bunch of cool moments.  Whitaker’s character of Saw is basically there for some crazy mugging, playing the Star Wars requisite crazy old mentor.  The characters aren’t really fleshed out even by Star Wars movie standards.  However, like in a war movie, each one has a distinctive quirk.   

The flick has a bit of a villain problem with three main baddies.  Krennic is a exceptionally whiny antagonist, which works because Imperials are wimpy dictators subservient to their higher ups.  Mendelsohn makes Krennic hateable if not exactly scary.  Darth Vader pops up in exactly two scenes.  Voiced by James Earl Jones again he gets in one completely superfluous yet awesome scene of talking smack to Krennic.  His second scene is amazing, badass, and essential to the Star Wars story.  Krennic also has to answer to Grand Moff Tarkin who wants to take control of the Death Star.  Using CGI wizardry, Tarkin looks almost exactly like 1977 Peter Cushing, except for a few shots that slip into creepy uncanny valley area.  

Rogue One is a bit slow in the first half but there are some pretty nifty things like the crew battling Imperial troopers in a gritty urban fight which lots of explosions, funny moments and K-2SO being awesome.  When the Death Star is first fired it causes a slowly spreading fireball leading to a white-knuckled escape. In between the action, the movie features serious conversations in the Rebels ship that feel a little repetitive.  The scenes at the Rebel base are a bit too chatty and feature some needless plot pointing towards A New Hope by Jimmy Smits’ Bail Organa who says stuff about what is going to happen in that movie and then exits stage left. 

Things click excellently together for the finale as Rogue One becomes a desperate war movie with do or die scenarios.  There is an epic dual layered climax with the ground battle being exceptionally messy and the space battle has cool moves as the Rebels try to turn the tide.  The scale of the space combat is worth seeing on the big screen.  It gets exceptionally dark near the end but it’s admirable that Rogue One sticks to its blasters.  The final minutes are jaw dropping, continually ramping towards an amazing final shot.  Directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Monsters), Rogue One expertly recreates various settings of A New Hope, offers design tweaks to classic Star Wars iconography, and fleshes out the dense mythology of the Star Wars universe.  

There are a lot of subtle and not so subtle moments of fan service sprinkled throughout Rogue One: A Star Wars Story but it never overcomes the film.  It stakes by on cast chemistry and fun bits until it eventually reaches it’s inevitable, explosion laded conclusion with pathos and drama.  For a film that is ultimately unnecessary to the Star Wars saga, it’s a hell of an entertaining side story.