Good movie, but far from perfect

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2016)

Interestingly, while the trailers for 2015's highly anticipated "Star Wars:The Force Awakens" failed to impress me, I loved that film when I saw it, while the trailers for ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016) had me pumped up and excited and I left the theater somewhat disappointed and underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, there are several positives to this new offering to the Star Wars franchise, but there are several noticeable flaws.
R1 is a direct prequel to the 1977 classic "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope", telling the story of the band of rebels who actually stole the Death Star plans that we saw Princess Leia upload into R2-D2 in the first movie. The central character of R1 is Jyn Erso (earnestly played by Felicity Jones), whose father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen of 'Casino Royale' and the TV series 'Hannibal' fame) is the principal scientist/architect involved in the creation of the planet-killing superweapon Death Star. In the film's opening sequence (no crawl in this one), the elder Erso is compelled to come out of self-imposed exile with his wife and young daughter to return to construction of the superweapon by the Empire's high-ranking Director Krennic (passionately played by Ben Mendelsohn).
After the opening scene, flash forward 15 years to the time period of the film, where Jyn, now a young woman and a prisoner of the Empire, is rescued by the rebels and taken to the secret Rebel headquarters on the planet Yavin. Jyn is briefed by Alliance Leader Mon Mothma (well played by Genevieve O'Reilly) and Rebel spy Captain Cassian Andor (solidly played by Diego Luna) that they need her on a mission to the planet Jedha to find a rogue rebel Saw Gerrera (played by Forest Whitaker), who has made contact with Galen through a defecting Imperial pilot Bodhi (played by Riz Ahmed). Accompanying Jyn and Cassian on the mission is Andor's co-pilot K-2SO (played in scene-stealing fashion by Alan Tudyk), a re-programmed Imperial droid that now serves the Rebellion. The trio find Saw, who has a message from Galen on a flaw in the design of the superweapon. Along the way, they pick up Bodhi as well as a couple of stray Jedha warriors in Chirrut and Baze (humorously played by Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang).
The ragtag band of 6 rebels Jyn, Cassian, K2SO, Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze eventually gather help from a band of rebel soldiers and the team in the exciting climax execute a sneak attack on the planet Scarif, the location of the archive that houses the plans to the Death Star.
My general issues with this film are:
1) The characters are generally very bland and monotone. Ironically, the only character of substance was the droid K-2SO. Not one main human character really stood out. Forest Whitaker was utterly useless and a waste of screen time. Bodhi was a defector, but we never knew why. Jyn too easily fell for the cause, but the events of the film contradict that she should feel this way. And everyone just followed Jyn's lead for no apparent reason.
2) The Erso subplot felt almost like a retcon. The filmmaker made the entire key to destroying the Death Star a manipulative family melodrama instead of just having the rebels steal the plans so that the Alliance could examine them for any flaws, as was implied in the original '77 film. Basically, according to R1, EVERYONE in the Rebellion knew about the flaw prior to the events of the '77 movie. It almost makes the mission seem futile.
3) The casting of Jyn Erso feels too much like fan pandering. Don't get me wrong, I loved Rey in "The Force Awakens", but her story felt more genuine and like the filmmakers wanted to jumpstart the new trilogy with not just a strong female character, but a strong character. With Jyn, it feels like the filmmakers are saying "screw it, we're casting a female as the lead and there's no other option". I think this sentiment to only cast a female as lead devolves into dangerous territory where it begins to feel like shoehorned, disingenuous melodrama as was the case with Jyn and the Erso family in this. And Jyn being the main character failed to engage me or leave any kind of impression. She was just there, a nominal lead to say the least.
4) The film was actually too short, at about 2 hours, 15 minutes running time. It would have been better served to have fleshed out the main characters more and tossing the Jyn Erso-nominal lead in favor of a true ensemble dynamic. Speaking of the Erso subplot, the Krennic-Galen dynamic was a fail. I guess they were supposed to be old friends who ended up with different loyalties, but the director never expanded on it. Plus, Krennic's character was too much of a non-imposing villain, albeit Mendelsohn did the best he could with a vigorous performance.
I've already mentioned a few pros, such as the great K-2SO droid character, a few good human characters such as Krennic, Mothma, and Andor, as well as the great finale. A couple other pros as the inclusion of some of the characters from the original film, especially the iconic villain Darth Vader. There's a scene near the end that is genuinely scary and horrific, the scariest presentation of the character ever. It's really the Easter Egg moments like this that make the movie more watchable than most of the other stuff, which at times doesn't have the feel of a Star Wars movie.
Director Gareth Edwards did an admirable job and infused the film with noticeable elements of the original movie, as he kind of had to, but the overall story of R1 feels somewhat disjointed from the Star Wars mythology. Still, an entertaining movie overall nonetheless.