Poor characterizations, wooden performances and convenient resolutions but good addition to the saga nonetheless.

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2016)

I should state from the beginning; I don't think this is a bad movie, but it is disappointing, not in the sense that it did not meet expectations but the payoff(s) simply does disservice to the great story the movie promises. A rebel(-ish) scientist is forced to work on the Death Star, specifically designs a weakness so that the rebellion can stand a chance against it, but of course the alliance still needs the plans to the weapon to know where to look for that weak spot, so someone needs to steal it. This is a perfect setup which would have made a perfect movie, unfortunately we merely got an OK one. Instead of dissecting the movie step by step, I'll simply attempt to explain the weak points which prevented the movie reaching the greatness levels of original trilogy and the Force Awakens.
With that tragic of a backstory, Jyn Erso must have been a much more interesting character, usually good Felicity Jones gave a very wooden performance, I think the only emotion we saw from her was when she cried when she saw her father's holographic message, I get that they tried to convey the feeling of shock when her father died in her arms but Jones couldn't pull it off. Acting problems go for Cassian Andor as well; Diego Luna just didn't have the range for him to be an interesting character. When two leads fail to connect with the audience, their death at the end of the movie just cannot generate the impact it should.
Everyone's talking about how good this movie ties into the New Hope. Really? OK, they introduced six main characters in this movie, 6 rogues, obviously they won't be around for the New Hope so we know they will disappear one way or other. But do they all have to die? I'm not talking about a happy ending, but isn't giving the same conclusion for each of the rogue character is a bit lazy? But fine, that is a choice, they will all have to die. But do they have to die within 2 minutes of each other after completing a stupid task? The pilot died the minute he sent the transmission to the rebellion, by a stupid grenade thrown by a no-one stormtrooper. The blind swordsman walked to a stupid switch without a scratch while a dozen stormtroopers were firing at him, because he was using the Force but when he flipped the switch I presume the Force's attention was needed elsewhere, he was hit instantly and died at the arms of his friend who after being a non-believer the whole movie, decided to 'be one with the Force' and went on a suicide attack on stormtroopers. Yes, the movie ties into the New Hope where the New Hope is concerned but doesn't care how its wraps its own original characters, they all could have died along with Jyn and Cassian and that would have been a little cliché but more effective as deaths of those two doesn't bring enough emotional impact because of poor characterization and performances. But I'll give the movie K2SO's death, it was great, though that would have more impact if it wasn't jammed between other deaths.
There are also some details inserted into the story with the only purpose of pushing the runtime over 2 hour mark, getting the hard drive with the plans part is one of them but that was forgivable because it tied into K2SO's death but then the pilot ran towards a socket with a cable roll on his back, I don't even remember why that was for, and then the blind swordsman needed to flip that switch because reasons. And the antenna at the roof to transmit the plans...WHY? Because she needed to go to end of the ledge so she couldn't see Krennic coming behind her? Stuff like this has the potential to make the movie feel like a 'filler' cash cow and this story does not deserve that.
Overall, the movie presents us a great story with good pacing and some amazing fan service, but it has some significant weaknesses which are hard to ignore.
PS: One may think why I would give it 8 stars after such harsh criticism, as I said before, I enjoyed the movie and thought it deserved 6-7 stars but that Vader sequence at the end was one of the best (maybe the best) action sequences for Darth Vader, so that is a solid 2 stars there.