Hopeless...

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2017)

I wanted to love this movie. I had high hopes that this spin off would leave the franchise feeling grounded again and make a little more sense than the last flick... oh boy did it NOT.
While some of the visuals are certainly cool, overall the film is gray and bland, much like the story it aims to tell. The plot couldn't go wrong... rebel spies stealing plans to the Death Star certainly is a story worth a feature length motion picture, definitely a story I wanted to see fleshed out... but now that I've seen it, I changed my mind! The musical score is loud, obnoxious, and distracting. The CGI is pretty unconvincing. The special effects range from "awesome" to "please stop". The movie flows like paint dries. There are some interesting ideas in there, but anything remotely so is executed with the competency of a 12 year old boy's fan fiction. The acting is all around hammy and cringe-worthy with the exceptions of Papa Erso and the charming Imperial droid that most certainly deserved a better movie and script to work with, the lovable K-2SO.
Not a single one of the characters has a clear motivation. I was constantly left wondering, what does this person want? What little information I received came through vague theatrical self-important dialogue that didn't seem to reveal anything substantial as much as provide loose context for why characters were going from point A to B. The bad guy wanted to stop the rebellion, and the protagonist wanted to find her father... but beyond that, I was never quite sure why anything was happening other than, "save the rebellion!" and "rebel scum!" for the sake of violence.
The plot is a vehicle for shaky cam style action and haphazard fan service... much of the fan service creating all new plot holes to make up for the non-existent plot hole this movie promised to fix. At least C-3PO being owned by Uncle Owen in Episode II can be explained by "oh, he just forgot... racism against droids or whatever." The plot holes here are just baffling... leaving me wondering if whoever came up with this ever actually saw the original 1977 film, or if anyone involved had half a brain to question the blatant contradictions to the already shaky continuity.
Maybe nobody really cared. Gotta get dat money.
This movie is boring at best, and utterly infuriating at worst. There's one insanely awesome scene between this heap and a 0 rating. The Force Awakens stumbled with its derivative revival of the franchise. But this movie completely ruined everything it touches. If you like Star Wars references, puns, shaky cam action scenes, archetype characters cut outs, the Empire's fashion sense, or religious chanting, this is the movie for you. Don't expect the rich in depth story telling Star Wars is known for, and don't expect to see the deep reflection of war and sacrifice the delusional fans will insist this is... don't listen to them! Ahh! They're delusional, it's a trap.