A film worth rebelling against

Rating: 4/10 (14 August 2017)

"Rogue One" is an American science fiction film from 2016 and actually the highest grossing film of the entire year. The reason is obviously the film's close connection to Star Wars and as the series got new life breathed into it back in 2015 and we get the next film in 2017, this one here was a bit of a filler movie that made sure fans don't have to wait for the next blockbuster for two years. What a long time! And eventually the film was nothing but forgettable filler material. And at easily 2 hours, it really dragged on many occasions. The director here is Gareth Edwards and I am not familiar with the name or works at all I think. The writers are really many and I won't list the names, but it turned out to be an example of too many cooks spoiling the broth. The film can easily be structured into two halves with the first ending with Mikkelsen's character's death. The first half is certainly superior to the second and because of the latter you could maybe also add war here as a genre. There with Mikkelsen I already mentioned an actor who is one of Europe's very best these days for sure and in my opinion, except the opening scene, he was completely wasted. Same can be said about Forest Whitaker, another very talented guy and the only Oscar winner in the cast here I think. I also think that Smits, Ahmed and Mendelsohn have more range than they were allowed to put on display here.
And then we have lead actress Felicity Jones and there is no denying that she is really talented, recently got her first Oscar nomination too. But these kind of movies may not be her thing, maybe she is actually too talented to lead a film like this. She may not have huge star potential, even if she is stunning and that's certainly why people in 10-15 years will talk about Ridley, but not about Jones I am afraid. Her male co-lead Diego Luna may be another actor from this category. Talent yes, star potential not really. There is just no denying that this film is about nothing but the technical aspects, most of all the visual effects of course and the latter is also one of two categories where this film, mostly thanks to its box office success, managed Academy Award nominations. But in my opinion, this is a contender for weakest Academy Award nominee released in 2016, even if the work in the respective fields may be impressive. I can't deny that. But story is just so much more important to me. So yeah as you see, I had quite a few problems with this one. I think that frequently memorable villains/antagonists are more important than memorable heroes really, but the bad guys here are just as forgettable. One of the not too many positive aspects from the film is the ending, which probably let many also forget about the tons of mediocrity in the previous hour. Overall, I cannot share the praise critics and audiences had for this one.
I may be a bit biased as sci-fi has always been among my least favorite genres, but I also liked the Star Wars film from the year before a lot more than this one here. By the way, the occasional Star Wars reference here in terms of character inclusions (like Leia in the very last scene) could not save this style-over-substance film either. And it is also not very original anymore to have a robot creature be the only source of comedy here, not even for the franchise. My idea here would have been extend the first 75 minutes story-wise to 100 and include the crucial parts of the rebellious attacks and make this a more focused film. That way I may have liked it more. It's a thumbs-down. Not recommended and it is a good thing that many aspects here (gonna avoid spoilers) indicate that there will be no Rogue 2. I just hope they come up with something better if they need to fill another year before Episode 9.