Very straightforward SciFi action movie

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2016)

I you're reading this review, you're probably a Star Wars fan anyway, so I don't need to recommend it, but I felt very satisfied with this surprisingly lean addition to the Star Wars universe!
It's the most SF-ish of all the Star Wars movies - no princesses, no magic swords, prophecies or whatever - and it's extremely straightforward: no side quests, no twists, not even a romance. There's little humour or funny one-liners, most of those thanks to droid K-2SO; I don't know if that's a good thing, I have to watch it again someday to see if this droid doesn't get grating. The straightforward approach also means that we have very little in the way of character development or political or historical background but I didn't miss those ingredients much, the move was so entertaining. This is, from start to finish, an actioner.
Production design and SFX are very good, the Star Wars universe feels lived in and many characters and places have a realistic touch about them. The action sequence at the end goes on for maybe a few minutes too long, but never gets boring at least upon first viewing. And the whole story expands very nicely upon Episode 4's "history", probably makes watching the original "Star Wars" nearly a new experience. In fact, I don't know why this movie is set apart from the "main" SW movies at all, it's not apart in any meaningful manner but should really be called something like "Episode 3.9".