"A redefined approach to a well known franchise"

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2016)

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is a redefined approach to a well known franchise. It marks the beginning of a new type of Star Wars movies - the ones told from a different perspective. "Rogue One" puts you in a place of more ordinary, everyday struggle of people living under the terror of imperialism. But, it does it with a twist; no longer is everything black and white, with clear villains and heroes, but it is rather more grey.
And this is one of the things the movie sets up perfectly. It shows us how people adapted to a new order and how they developed within it. It shows us the grit of the galaxy far, far away. Connections that have been established between people of different species, united under the same goal. Their thoughts, their motivations and their conflicts. And it usually nails those. And the reason sometimes it fails to properly deliver becomes apparent as the movie goes on.
As a standalone film, it is faced with a difficult challenge - it needs to set up a lot of new characters and tell their stories in a relatively short time (compared to previous trilogies). Hence the reason why you might end up feeling that you haven't seen as much as you wanted to.
That being said, the fresh faces in the new cast were up to the challenge set before them, and delivered their roles perfectly. They successfully establish their relationship and motivations, although I would have preferred if I saw more of each character's backgrounds, which is again a sacrifice that had to be made due to shorter running time. Performance of Alan Tudyk as K-2SO was brilliant and I can honestly say that he quickly became one of my new all-time favorites in this universe.
The pacing of the movie is also well executed - there wasn't a single time I felt discomfort or boredom during its run-time. Story pieces were set up properly, but at times felt rushed in order for everything to be wrapped up by the end. The movie might have benefited from leaving certain elements of the story unanswered, but as it stands, it still brought us a satisfying conclusion.
Action sequences were intense and incredibly filmed, mixing both real life sets and props with CGI, creating some of the most memorable moments in Star Wars saga. Those moments show us the ingenuity of both sides that are fighting and steps they are willing to take in order to succeed.
"Rogue One", despite having some of these issues, still manages to bring to life an epic story filled with gorgeous worlds, interesting characters and memorable moments. A story that is going to be remembered.