terrific fan service

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2016)

Weapons designer Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is hiding from the empire with his wife and daughter. He is captured by Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) who kills his wife and forces him to work on the Death Star. Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) rescues and raises Galen's daughter Jyn. Years later, Saw has become an extremist and Jyn (Felicity Jones) is in Imperial prison. Galen convinces cargo pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) to defect and seek out Saw with a message. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) with droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) from the rebel alliance rescues Jyn. They are sent to find Saw and the pilot defector. The ragtag group is joined by Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang) as the empire completes its secret ultimate weapon.
This is a fan service war movie coming from director Gareth Edwards. I don't know why fan service has such a bad reputation. It's definitely better than fan disservice. This should satisfy any fans of episode four. There are solid actors doing good acting. Mendelsohn does a great job and Felicity Jones is a good lead. K-2SO is probably the best new character. There is an international cast with corresponding accents which will probably annoy certain people. It doesn't bother me but I expect snarky internet comments. The CGI characters recreation is a great idea looking for better execution. The movie does miss the opening crawl. The start feels abrupt without it. There are a couple of dialog speeches that get a little long. Despite the little hiccups, there is plenty of action and an epic third act which should be fun for any fan of the franchise.