Rogue One Review

Rating: Null/10 (14 December 2016)

A few years back when the surprise announcement was made that Disney would be buying Lucasfilm and acquiring the rights to make episodes 7,8,9 as well as spin off every alternate year, people were blown away but a lot of skepticism was present. A lot of that was dulled after The Force Awakens returned to a base practical effects and brought the fun back to the Star Wars Universe. Now however we have the first of the spin-off anthology films which has its share of production problem rumors and will have us following a group of rebels trying to retrieve plans for the Death Star that will take us bumper to bumper with the original Star Wars from 1977.
For a start I will tell you that whilst there is a few old John Williams tracks merged into the score, the Michael Giacchino score takes you out of the universe as it pales in comparison to the scores of all the other films. John Williams music is an important piece of the feeling you get when you watch Star Wars and I would much rather they cobble together music from the previous 7 films than try and imitate it (poorly). The film is also not shot in the classic way all the others were but I guess these anthology films are going to take some risks and stray away from the Saga formula. After getting used to the look and score of the film you can still feel enjoy it somewhat as it still has the costuming, set design and sound effects we are used to.
The films first act introduces the characters and does so a little clumsily, in fact the structure is a little all over the place. The characters are all likable though and well acted with Felicity Jones and Diego Luna being the stand outs the rebels. The second act has its moments but often stalls but the third act is quite excellent and even though this film is not a patch on The Force Awakens it does have much better aerial battles.
The effects were as strong as you would imagine even with this one being a little too cgi heavy compared to The Force Awakens. Luckily though there was no cringe worthy Snoke cgi moments. However "Mild Spoiler" the computer generated version of the long dead Peter Cushing once again playing Moff Tarkin from the original film, whilst getting much closer still has that uncanny valley effect that may be off putting. "Spoiler finished".
There are a few Easter eggs in the film and a couple of Holy sh!t moments but I never felt as engaged as I wanted to. It did not quite live up to the promise but it is certainly a solid effort and no disgrace to the franchise. I still enjoyed the film and plan to see it again on IMAX.