Tedious and Underwhelming

Rating: 2/10 (31 December 2016)

I had quite high expectations for this film. I enjoyed the original Star Wars films. The title character was portrayed by a well known actress. People I know have said that they really liked it. It had good reviews on this site. However, when I actually saw this film, I was very underwhelmed.
One of the main reasons was that I found the plot really hard to follow. It seemed like one minute the characters were on one planet, then they would fly to another. In a film where the whole galaxy is open, the filmmakers really need to narrow the setting down to avoid confusion. One would think that the names of the places on the screen would help, but since those names were gibberish to me, they did not at all. It just ended up confusing. I never new which planets the good guys were on and the bad guys and I did not know why they were on certain planets at certain times and it was all just a mess.
Another reason was that the character simply were not developed enough. Do not get me wrong, I am not having a go at the actors, they were fine. I just felt that I did not necessarily like any of the characters besides the comic relief robot, K2 which really spoiled the experience for me. Jyn was not developed enough and her partner lacked depth and their development was far too rushed. I did not get time to get to know any of the characters and that makes it difficult to enjoy a movie.
Overall, the film is not dreadful, however flawed and it did not gain my attention. I ended up continually checking the time to see how close it was to finishing. That is a red flag for me when it comes to viewing films. It really had the potential to be a great film, it just needed a simpler plot, better character development and less coincidences when it comes to plot, especially at the end.