Rogue One is a beautiful, epic Star Wars story with a few flaws

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2016)

After sitting with my thoughts and mulling over my feelings about Rogue One I have come up with a list of my general feelings about the movie.
Pros: Beautiful Cinematography- There are so many well composed shots in the movie. I kept thinking to myself while watching it "That could be a poster." Gareth Edwards did a great job of framing the action in Rogue One. He was able to capture the violence and darker tones of the film in a way that felt harrowing on a visceral level. He also did a great job on creating scale within the camera frame which made things like the AT-ATs on the beach feel truly menacing.
Decent CGI: Overall the CGI was pretty good, especially the CGI explosions both big and small. My one gripe was that there was one entirely CGI character that lingered in the uncanny valley to the point where it was distracting. That wouldn't have been an issue if the character was as prominently used.
Characters: A lot of the characters in Rogue One feel a little 2- Dimensional and under developed. That is not necessarily a bad thing in an ensemble action movie. I went into this movie expecting something akin to "Saving Private Ryan" but in the Star Wars universe; by this I mean I wasn't expecting the entire squadron to be fully formed well rounded characters because taking the time to do so would take away from the sprawling war epic motif that the film was going for. Jyn Erso certainly felt fleshed out and real but the movie left me wanting more depth of character from Cassian Andor and Commander Krennic. I wanted to like both but there just wasn't enough backstory and characterization present to allow me to emotionally connect with the characters.
Pacing: I have heard a lot of people complaining about the pacing of this movie but I personally enjoyed the slow escalating tension that moves the rebellion closer and closer to all out war with the empire. The film explores the early days of the rebellion where soldier were asked to be spies, saboteur er, and assassin in the name of a cause they believed in. They were working from the shadows because they lacked the resources, manpower and opportunity to directly confront the empire with any glimmer of a chance of winning. The film shows how the rebellion came out of the shadows and legitimized itself as a force that would stand against the Empire. I like how the film portrayed the escalation towards war with the third act serving as a beautiful crescendo of a battle.
In summation I really liked the film even though it had a few issues that stuck in my craw. As a die-hard fan of Star Wars, I went feeling like I had a good idea of what the plot structure was going to be and I wasn't disappointed by that. I was expecting an ensemble action movie that relay focused on the darker nature of war and the film delivered it. I wish that Andor and Krennic were more fleshed out in the movie instead of in the "Rogue One: Catalyst" novel which serves as a prologue to the movie but I understand that might have slow the pacing of this film further which I have heard other people complain about already. There were many jaw dropping, beautiful shots in the film that really contributed to that epic feeling we all associate with Star Wars. I enjoyed how most of the fan service references were fairly subtle as I have seen several movies be overly heavy-handed in their fan-service this year.
Even with my few quibbles I'd give Rogue One a "B+"