A short review of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016)

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2016)

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is every bit as good as you've heard; even this non-"Star Wars" geek had great fun with it. I'd cheerfully give it a 9 out of 10, and I'd recommend you give it a try even if you don't typically enjoy the franchise.
Die-hard fans are currently noting all of the things that make this film unique in the series: it's the first "Star Wars" movie without a Jedi, the first without the trademark opening text-crawl, the first one without a lightsaber duel.
Casual fans might be more impressed with more general differences. Two stood out for me.
One, this is the first Star Wars film since "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) that seems aimed mainly at adults. Yes, the fairy tale elements are still there — we have an underdog orphan searching for her father, the requisite anthropomorphic aliens, and a humorous robot mascot (which surprisingly worked quite well). But those elements are absolutely upstaged by a bona fide war film, complete with tactics, strategy, panic, collateral damage and casualties. I remember thinking during a surprisingly gritty urban warfare scene that it was as though some filmmakers had taken a scene from a film like "The Hurt Locker" (2008) and set it within the "Star Wars" universe.
Two, I think that this is the most human Star Wars movie we've had since "Empire." It wouldn't be "Star Wars" without the aforementioned aliens and robots, and plenty of references are made to the Force and the Jedi. But this is a movie about ordinary people. Yes, there is one larger-than-life character who appears  force-sensitive? This universe's equivalent of Marvel's "Daredevil?" (This was a confusing story element that didn't always work for me.) But we are presented primarily with all-too-human anti-heroes who feel fear, suffer, and die.
Isn't that more exciting than watching cartoonish aliens fight armies of equally cute battle-droids? In this film's better moments, it made me feel like a was watching a "real" war with "real" people, and I was surprised to find myself actually rooting for the good guys in a "Star Wars" film — this has been a series that I've long half-dismissed as being essentially children's stories.
Seriously, this was a good movie. Check it out.