Fun but shallow

Rating: 6/10 (16 December 2017)

Rogue One is an odd movie - going in, we all knew roughly what we were going to see: Rebel agents breaking into an imperial facility and successfully stealing plans for the Death Star. So there was no suspense in the outcome - we all know it, we know how the story ends.
The film tries to build suspense in this - will the plucky rebels succeed? - but it is a wasted effort because we as an audience know that they do. Had this been filmed before A New Hope, then I doubt myself and others would be as critical, but it comes decades later and tries to fill a hole that, honestly, didn't really need filling.
Then there are the characters. Oh, what a wasted opportunity they were. Aside from the droid, all are paper thin. The tragedy is that there are moments where you begin to think they're going to really flesh this motley crew out, make us care about them. "I've been in this fight since I was six years old..." from Cassian is a good example - they start to flesh him out and then you can practically hear the thud as they drop the subject. The same happens with Jyn, they start to develop her and drop it.
The end result is characters who the audience has no connection with and thus no feelings for when they die at the end. We're supposed to feel sad yet inspired by their sacrifice, but instead because the characters are so underdeveloped there is no emotional weight to the scene.
The story line is also rather weak - it is essentially a series of fetch quests from any generic MMO. Fetch the Imperial Pilot. Fetch Jyn's dad. Fetch the Death Star plans.
And finally we get to the giant, glossy black elephant in the room. Darth Vader. His action scene at the end was fantastic. Some of his other scenes however... Darth Vader telling dad jokes? Really? Ten seconds that did almost as much harm to the character as Episodes one through three.
Now, that seems like a lot of negativity, but the film is still enjoyable. It is well paced and tightly plotted, there is no wasted time here. You do feel the urgency of the time limit, especially in the last act. The visuals are fantastic and Scarif in particular looks stunning. The space battle is probably the best we have ever seen in a Star Wars film and showed the Rebels ingenuity; how despite being massively outgunned superior tactics allow them to defeat their foe.
This isn't a terrible film, it just isn't great. It's enjoyable but has some very serious flaws, many of which could have been averted simply by investing the time to make us care for these characters.