Skull-burningly boring, miserable.

Rating: 1/10 (18 April 2017)

While I did not grow up anywhere near the release of the original trilogy of the star wars series, I did grow up watching them again and again on VHS tape. The original trilogy, and even the prequels to a degree, presented a bright, fun world full of intrigue, action and adventure.
The fact that on my very first viewing of 'Rouge One', I actually fell asleep half way though the movie, tells you everything you need to know. I attempted to watch the movie a second time, and once again dozed off at a few points, relying on my family to periodically wake me up so that I didn't miss the plot too much.
This movie's attempts to breakaway from high fantasy action-adventure, and make a dark, gritty sci-fi, has resulted on one of the most insultingly dull movies that I have been made to sit through. Most of the story is an unintelligible confusing mess, impossible to follow plot, no lovable or relatable characters, and an annoying monk who won't stop chanting (which is WAY more annoying that it sounds, trust me).
This movie attempts to fill in the gap between Episodes 3 and 4, and does a pretty poor job. If the first hour and twenty minutes had been cut from this movie, and the last forty or so left in, it would have turned out exactly the same, in terms of plot. We didn't learn anything worthwhile or important during the set up, just a fairly good action climax at the end. Even the ending stand-off between the opposing sides felt like a watching a video-game, rather than a good movie.
I highly recommend that you do not watch this movie, as it is a failure as a Star Wars title, and a movie in general. Or, just skip three-quarters of the way into the run time, and watch from there. The anti-hero side character has an annoying voice too. Everything that's meant to be chilling or gripping, like the monk or the anti-hero, come across as boring, or annoying, and in this case, both.
I do not believe that the director could have watched this movie back and felt proud of it, as it is just outright uninspired. Pointless Star Wars title that should never have been made. I would EASILY consider this to be the worst Star Wars movie that I have ever seen. (yes, even the Phantom Menace was better. WAY better.)