A complete disappointment

Rating: 6/10 (26 December 2016)

I had little hope coming in to see this movie, one might even say that I had a bad feeling about it, but that's a good thing because most of the time when I watch a movie and my expectations are low I get to enjoy the good parts more. Unfortunately, this film has almost no good parts.
Now, I am not the type of fan that read the comics and the fan made books and so on, but I did watch all Star Wars movies, with various degrees of enjoyment. I even did a marathon of all the films and I have to say that both originals and prequels felt in the same vein: a bit silly, over the top with "the vision" of Star Wars, with the technology that looks like in the 1960s if they had a lot more lights on every gadget and star travel, with the black and white battle and the balance of the force. Even the stupid J.J.Abrams version had something to be said about it.
Rogue One is clearly worse than any of the films mentioned. Forget the horrible CGI for Tarkin and princess Leia (I've seen better animation in PC games from 2000), forget the scenes that were in the trailer to get you in the cinema and then removed from the theatrical release, forget the scenes where dozens of extras in plastic plated pajamas ran right in the blaster fire and died, forget all of that and instead focus on the characters. The best actor in this movie is, by far, Alan Tudyk. You know who that is? The robot!
The young charismatic beautiful female (gender swap! yay!) lead character starts off as nobody, does a few inconsistent flips of behavior, is used as a pawn by just about everyone, and ends as nobody. The father and hero figures are just as unsure of which side they are on and just as uninteresting. The villain is a force-less bureaucrat that somehow ends up in all the scenes, even the action ones, bringing absolutely no charisma or element of intrigue. The Alliance is a joke. The references to the other films just thrown out there randomly, with no consequence whatsoever. I cared for NO character in this film. None! They might just as well been all bad CGI characters with a common backstory of forgotten computer animations that ended up in a movie. I. did. not. care.
Bottom line: Donnie Yen's character is a joke, but he is always entertaining when he moves. Alan Tudyk is great as the sarcastic robot. I even liked Riz Ahmed enough to care just a little bit about his character. The rest is utter boredom, waste of time and potential. Rogue One is the first film in the franchise that made me question the reason why I watch these turds. And that's saying a lot.