"Rogue One" is lacking in characters but succeeds in a lot of the rest!

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 2016)

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is about a group of Rebels, who are trying to steal the plans of the Death Star.
Gareth Edwards was an excellent choice for directing. He really nailed to make a "war" movie, which is dark and gritty, yet manages to stay pg-13 and has no desire to be rated R. He is a director who has a knowledge of scale and he shows it. During the battle sequences we see everything from the ground up: from the perspective of the protagonists. Due to this you feel more involved with the characters and the enemy also looks more imposing and scary. Edwards also used shadow in a nice why, by which he created some good looking shots. He didn't only use it to create a nice shot, but he also used it in a creative manner, by only filming the shadow. An example is the first time we see Darth Vader. He films the wall next to Krennic, so the shadow of Darth looks very big next to the small Krennic. Again, to show that Darth Vader is very dangerous and stands above all. It gives cool shots with a meaning to them. That whole scene was amazing, actually. The action scenes he handled well too. Sometimes I found these to be quickly edited, but these were mostly in the beginning of the movie. He also exchanged hand-held camera with some form of steady cam, which really worked well when Chirrut defeated the group of Stormtroopers. That and the choreography made the scene good. The last act was absolutely fantastic: I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. During that act they also used some left over scenes from the original trilogy of pilots in X-wings. It was notable, but I found it to be a cool extra.
The soundtrack was not made by John Williams, which is pretty surprising, because he had composed the score of I believe, all the other Star Wars movies. The new composer, Michael Giacchino, did a very good job. He re-used some of Williams's work, but changed them a bit. He managed to create an original score, which had a Star Wars-feel to it, which I very much liked. The special effects were some of the best that I have seen this year. This really helped with the action scenes and also with the use of the laser shot from Death Star. They were able to portray the destruction very well. Gran Moff Tarkin looked very good. First I didn't even notice that he was CG, but at some points you were able to see that he kind of looked like a video-game character.
The acting too was good. Felicity Jones played a strong female protagonist, where she showed her emotions really well. She sometimes acted a bit flat, but most of the times I liked her very much. But that flat acting was maybe to show the wall that Jyn has built up, so people can't see how she feels, and I believe that this was their goal. Diego Luna I really liked. He performed well in all of the scenes. He did have good charisma. Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang were both very good. They had good chemistry and it felt like they went back a long time. The antagonist, played by Ben Mendelsohn, was very good. He was menacing and fitted his role very well. The last thing I want to mention here is the character of Darth Vader. A lot of people said that he was underutilized, but I didn't think that that was true. He had good scenes and lines and also one of my favorite scenes of the movie. The scene where he plows through rebels like it's nothing. That scene was really awesome to look at.
The writing was good. The story was one that should've been told and it was strong on that aspect. I didn't find the story boring or lacking. What I did find a bit dull was that the character of Jyn was the only one who really was developed. From Diego Luna's character we only get one scene, in which we learn something about him, and that scene worked for me. In the beginning we also see that he is a rebel, but someone who doesn't go by as a "good-guy", because he shoots someone in the back. Now my problem doesn't lie with these two characters, but with the rest of them. They were not given anything, except for some emotionless exposition. The pilot, played by Riz Ahmed, got brainwashed, but just after a few scenes he was OK, even though Gerrera said that he would go insane. It didn't make any sense and would've been some character development. Due to the lack of rounded characters the ending didn't really emote me, whereby the death of them all was kind of useless. The acting was the thing that kind of saved this, because due to the acting I felt like they did have a character build around them. The dialogue had some good lines and was funny at times. Most of these comedic moments were given to K-2SO, which was by the way a fun character, just introduced by a lot of exposition. And that's all we get to know from him. Alan Tudyk did a good job at voice acting. The ending was very good and tied in with "A New Hope" well. Again they used CGI in that scene for the face of Leia, but I also think that that looked good.
In the end "Rogue One" was a very good Star Wars movie, whose story is one that had to be told. The ending was a nice conclusion. The characters were lacking, but the directing I found to be very good. The CGI, just like all of the shots, were good-looking and the acting was great. That's why "Rogue One" gets a 8.6/10.