Could have been something really special !!!

Rating: 6/10 (28 March 2017)

Another year, another Star Wars film. Only this time it's a spin off, a story relevant in the overall context of the Star Wars saga, but it still doesn't directly fall in line with the Skywalker stories in the episodic films. Let's first talk about what I liked:
First of all, I have to somewhat admire Disney and Gareth Edwards for trying to do something different. 'Rogue One' certainly does feel different from the other Star Wars films, both visually and tonally. The word 'dark' gets thrown around quite a lot nowadays, but this film certainly does have a darker edge to it in comparison to the others in the series, although the seriousness does get undercut from time to time whenever some teddy bear-like or frog- like creature appears on screen with a blaster in it's hand, but to be fair that has more to do with the inherent juvenile nature of the Star Wars universe as a whole than this film in particular. Even though there is some fan service in it, at least 'Rogue One' doesn't completely play out like nostalgia porn(like Force Awakens did at times) for viewers who only want to watch scenes that overtly rekindle their memories of childhood and their experiences of watching Star Wars.
Secondly, the concept of the specific story that this particular film explores is interesting. A film that shows the process by which the rebels somehow steal the Death Star plans and thereby adds a bridge between the prequels and the original trilogy, is actually a creative idea.
Thirdly, the action scenes in 'Rogue One' are really well executed. Gareth Edwards showed in 'Godzilla' that he has a knack of not only staging huge magnanimous action brilliantly but also making them look weirdly grounded. In 'Rogue One', Edwards skillfully juxtaposes the aerial space battles and shots of Starfighters colliding in space, with the battles being fought on the ground and the beach where the camera remains at eye level, giving the viewer a proper perspective of the chaos in motion. Gareth Edwards' visual style and flair in terms of action sequences is truly on show here.
Having mentioned what I liked, I'll move on to what I didn't and that's the characters. There is not a single character in the entire film that I can say I truly connected with emotionally. Whenever there is a film involving a group of individuals coming together to accomplish a mission, an argument can be made that it is difficult to give depth to each and every character. But I think an easy solution for that is to focus on one or two of them and give them depth and layers while the rest of the group gets certain individual personalities and characteristics to enrich the squad. In Seven Samurai Kurosawa focused on Mifune and Shimura's character and their interactions with the other members of the group with their own distinctive personalities made Seven Samurai have thematic depth and emotional resonance apart from the badassness of the action scenes. The two main characters of Gyn Urso and Cassian Andor are really bland and are not given any scene to add any personality to the film. Gareth Edwards found it very difficult to get good performances out of his actors in 'Godzilla'. It's pretty much the same here. Unlike the charismatic Daisy Ridley in 'Force Awakens', Felicity Jones and the rest of the cast are extremely unmemorable and nothing about them jumps out as something we can hold onto to like them. The lack of personality and the lack of attachment to the characters actually ended up diminishing the satisfaction I derived from the climactic action scenes even though they were expertly executed. The somewhat romantic entanglement that the film hints towards between Urso and Andor is extremely unearned.
'Rogue One' is a solid action film, it has great visuals, great action scenes and it tries to do something different with the Star Wars franchise. However the lack of any sort of character depth and emotional density taints the film's overall effect. It could have been something great, but in the end it's just good, but in a dispensable way.