Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The last half-hour or so of Rogue One is sure to be the talk of the whole picture, and might even be remembered as one of the top moments in the Star Wars film canon. The audience is treated to a Rebel firefight from the ground-level vantage points of the people in it. In the sky above, X-Wing and TIE fighters engage in some of the franchise’s best dogfights since at least the snow battle in The Empire Strikes Back. Then, it pulls off its real, see-it-to-believe-it masterstroke, connecting directly into the original Star Wars (as in, practically tacking its last frame onto to that film’s first), complete with digital re-creations of old familiar faces (literally). It’s utterly ridiculous, but damn if it isn’t impressive. Just one little problem: getting to this final blowout is a slog through mediocrity.

This is a production trying to be too many things at once. It wants to be a gritty war movie, yet undercuts its own efforts with a lighter, sometimes comedic blockbuster approach to several scenes. The tone is also hindered by the inclusion of seemingly every possible in-joke and reference. It aims to expand the franchise lore, but dwells too much on filling in timeline blind spots and plot holes (the reason the original Death Star has such an obvious weak spot is revealed, for example) than new and interesting storytelling. It’s also rather cluttered with cameos that add nothing to the narrative. Even marquee star Forrest Whitaker seems only in the movie to connect it to the popular cartoon series (and like Bryan Cranston in director Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, is in it much less than we were led to believe).

Everyone remembers how the 1977 original revolved around the stolen Death Star plans. Well, Rogue One tells us how the Rebel Alliance got a hold of those plans. It was the work of a ragtag group of rebellious souls, led by the iconoclastic Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), whose military scientist father (Mads Mikkelsen) was kidnapped by the Empire and forced to design the battle station. But stealing the plans is no easy task, requiring a dangerous mission into an Imperial stronghold, in the same mold as so many World War II pictures featuring a colorful cast of characters.

Except, the characters here are all one-note, or no-note. There’s little appeal and even less depth or backstory to let us know what drives them, even by the slim standards of war ensemble genre films. About all they do is yell at each other spelling out the plot points, or go through the motions through speeches and scenes you’ve seen in other movies, including other Star Wars movies. Only Alan Tudyk as (ironically) a digitally-created droid displays any bit of personality, though still, C-3PO he ain’t. As for Ben Mendelsohn’s bad guy, he’s upstaged by the returning Grand Moff Tarkin, which wouldn’t be so embarrassing if it were the real Peter Cushing instead of a hologram. 

The Force Awakens was far from original in its environments and action sequences, but one could argue that’s because it was aiming to be a nostalgia fest. Rogue One has no excuse for it. All the new planets and sets are rather drab with dull colors, not to mention derivative of earlier Star Wars and countless other sci-fi movies. Even the grand finale’s location looks like it was filmed on a tropical resort, one where they barely even bothered to disguise the swimming areas. And for the first half or more, when there’s action, it’s mostly standard shaky cam and uninspired CGI.

The only part of the whole thing that looks like it was made with care and skill is the final act. It’s as if they came up with this ambitious sequence and worked backward from it. And they pulled it off wonderfully; I’ll reiterate that it’s a fun and exciting 30 minutes or so. But it might have been better off as a short film, rather than the climax of an otherwise thoroughly unexceptional work.