Well trimmed mish-mash

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2016)

There is a sense about proceedings that this movie could have evolved from a direction that Rebels didn't take. There are plenty of characters and genres plied together: at once an implausible martial arts fantasy, a dirty dozen war movie, a reflection on contemporary war and exploitation by superpowers and then again, a Star Wars tie together prequel. How does this work ? Well, it rolls along ... it gathers pace, the actors deliver, the set pieces have spectacle. The baddies are bunglers and the heroes have shades of torment. The big ships collide nicely. For me, the actors contribute greatly - Mads Mikkelsen, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Wen Jiang, Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Felicity Jones give good quality performances, Forest Whitaker is great and I really enjoyed Diego Luna. In a role I thought would be trite and 2D, I was surprised to enjoy his character arc performance. Lots of subtleties and variety from the cast. The CGI characters aren't quite spot on, but fantastic to see Peter Cushing eviled-up (though a tad over-old in detail). Good to see Darth in full swing, though he must have been wearing his B-suit helmet (or dressed a little hastily) in his initial scene - we also get to see his baddies-lair briefly which is a bonus. There is a lot crammed in, but the overall impression was of a multi-faceted enjoyable romp rather than disjointed vignettes. I can only assume there was a lot of editing and compromise involved in shaping up the final effort, but the end product gave my boys and I an enjoyable evening at the cinema. Surprised to have enjoyed it, would be pleased to view it again, though not sure I'd need to see it in 3D next time.