Almost......

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2017)

Excellent but not quite. Tonally a very different film to what you may expect but part of the Star Wars universe for sure and different in its look and feel. Although it beautifully shot and acted my issue with it is not an an issue with the film, its the fact that its prequel to one of my favorite films. So throughout the movie your waiting for those familiar moments to connect it to the start of Episode 4 and don't get me wrong this does deliver. However its all a bit anti climatic, did I really care about all the cliff hanger moments leading up to the start of episode 4? ...Well no actually I didn't care for them at all because I knew they would succeed in their mission and their ultimate fate either way didn't bother me...and that ultimately bothers me. I should care about the characters, I want to care about the characters. Thererfore for me it wasn't really a story worth telling. Its a geeks dream with lots of little easter eggs all over the place. Overall it was like a trivia movie that answers questions that I didn't ask e.g. Did you know who invented the death star and have you ever wondered what their story was? Did/do you want to know and do/did you care ? If you did or do then this film is amazing and tells it in a brilliant way. Its a disjointed film, dark for a majority of its run time but then constrained too not fully unleashing in the way that it could have done - they should have been a bit more braver and gone darker. But at the the end of the day Disney is writing the cheques, so there will always be limitations. All in all though its enjoyable and its STAR WARS so enjoy it and watch it on the big screen. Good to see some familiar faces on the big screen :).