Whoever didn't love episode 7 for any reason. This is your movie.

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2016)

What a ride. This review will be filled with hyperbole, but I won't apologize.
I saw and enjoyed Star Wars: Episode 7 a lot. It wasn't perfect, but it was good, and got me back into Star Wars mode again. Rogue One, however, surprised me in probably being the best Star Wars movie produced in this millennia, and I'm being serious.
First of all, manage your expectations. Rogue One isn't a new type of cinema experience, or unique. It's also a prequel, so the story has somewhere specific it has to end up.
With that in mind, Gareth Edward's movie is pretty close to an instant classic, in my opinion. It doesn't rush along, but give us ample time to get some sense of characters and locations. It doesn't dwell on exposition, other through character, and actual plot.
This is the story about how the rebel alliance acquired the plans for the death star, and it manages to give the plot and characters in A New Hope more meaning, and gravitas.
It's hard to tell why it's so good without spoiling a story that was such a delight to experience unspoiled, so I'll sum it up really, really short:
The only negative things I have to say about Rogue One, is that two CGI characters were 99% perfect instead of 100%. That's actually the reason I withhold my last star out of 10. It'll make sense after you've seen the movie. Other than that, this is everything I hoped for, and then some.