Prequel In Disguise

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2017)

At first glance Rogue One looks the part. However the great cinematography, interesting locations, and classic Star Wars aesthetic are merely a veneer, a carefully crafted charade that hide the superficiality underneath.
The film is not devoid of value. The action sequences are good and certain elements of the story are interesting.
Possibly its best but least explored dynamic is the class divisions within the Rebellion itself. At the top are upper-class elites who are timid about getting their hands dirty and on the other side are hardened extremists like Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) who is an inverted Darth Vader, kept alive by a mechanical apparatus.
However, despite a few genuinely fun moments, the film does not stand up to hard scrutiny upon second viewing, nor does it actually add anything of significance to the franchise.
The dialogue is clunky and repetitive.
The characters are two dimensional and none are really given enough time to develop.
The plot is generic and doesn't take any stylistic risks, sticking to a very familiar Star Wars structure.
The pacing is too fast, constantly moving from location to location.
The music lacks the subtlety, sophistication, and acoustic quality, of A New Hope's.
The cameos are buoyed by unconvincing performances that, for a film so obsessed with banking on nostalgia, should have looked and sounded exactly as they do in the following film.
Rogue One could have been an interesting experiment into fusing different genres into the Star Wars franchise, but it ended up as a generic filler film that fills a gap in the narrative no one needed to have filled.
As a mindless action film that puts you in the space of the Star Wars Universe it's effective, but as a story that adds any value to the Star Wars lore it isn't.