It's a good movie, but it's not a great one by any means.

Rating: 5/10 (18 December 2016)

So, I was dying for this story to come out, I mean who doesn't want to know how the rebel alliance got its hands on the plans to the Death Star so they could destroy it.
**SPOILER** So we get a female hero, yay to that, but did she have to be ANOTHER abandoned child? I mean really? She gets found by Saw Gerrera, played in Razzie winning fashion by the usually great Forest Whitaker. We don't really know what happens after that because it's glossed over very glibly, but somehow she turns into a criminal, etc.
So much of the movie is just a gloss coat of story. I would have liked to hear the characters telling of their back stories at least, but there really wasn't much development there at all.
The story itself was OK - we see our hero gathering together her rag tag band of heroes, and off they go to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Did I care that they didn't make it out? Nope, didn't really care about any of them at all.
Did I care when Han Solo got killed by his douche of a son in The Force Awakens? Hell yeah. I was like NO!!!
The best parts of the movie were when Darth Vader was in it (briefly) and when R2D2 and C3PO made an appearance. Those parts cheered my Star Wars fan's soul.
It wasn't like it was a bad movie, it was quite good - but will I buy it when it comes on DVD, well maybe to complete my collection, but I doubt I will watch it over and over like the others.
The music was great and the special effects were stellar as always.
The casting was ho-hum, but mostly it was the 2 dimensional scripting that bothered me. I like to have back stories, I like believable motivation in my characters.
Mostly, I expect to give a damn who lives or dies.
This latter point bothered me the most, and to be totally frank, when Forest Whitaker's character died, well, it was a relief because his over-acting was awful and his character's arc made little sense.
I gave it 6/10 because I wanted to be honest, as a Star Wars fan of 39 years and counting, that it wasn't as great as I have been hearing from everyone else.