Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review:
Unsung Heroes
BY IAN
TAN
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| That's one beauty of a poster! |
Set just moments before 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, Rogue One tells the tale of the Rebel
Spies who plot to thwart the evil Galactic Empire by stealing the plans to the
Death Star, the Empire’s moon-sized weapon capable of making entire planets go
kabloeey.
Coming off his recent success with
2014’s Godzilla, director Gareth
Edwards gives the Star Wars universe a go, and with a pretty high degree of
success. Visually speaking, Edwards nails it. Although the film looks and feels
very much like a Star Wars film, Edwards adds his own spin to it, making iconic
settings, spaceships, and the Death Star look the best they’ve ever looked on the big screen. Never
before has the Death Star felt so big, and never before has its destructive
power been felt as powerfully as it is in this film. Star Destroyers, X-Wings,
Y-Wings and other ships also make their return, and they truly pack a punch,
especially in the space battle in the film’s third act, which I found to be the
best space battle seen in a Star Wars film since the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi.
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| Look at the size of that thing |
The characters of the main Rogue One
team, namely Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) and the
C3PO-like droid K2SO (Alan Tudyk) are a solid bunch, with each actor playing
their role with urgency and gravitas. Alan Tudyk, although only seen as the CGI
droid K-2SO, is a particular standout, providing Rogue One with some of its most memorable moments, and Riz Ahmed
gives his character a neat balance of nervousness and courage. Mads Mikkelsen’s
small role as Jyn’s father is also effective and emotional, but Forest
Whitaker’s crazed and eccentric Saw Gerrera was little over the top in my
opinion.
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| Contrary to the top left of the image, these folks work for the Rebel Alliance |
On the side of
the villains, Ben Mendelsohn is appropriately evil yet vulnerable as Director Orson Krennic, providing a slightly more layered and at times
sympathetic Imperial Official. Guy Henry, who plays Grand Moff Tarkin in this one, does a fine job
as the character, even if his portrayal doesn’t match up to Peter Cushing’s (who passed away in 1994) subtle but highly memorable performance as the same character in A
New Hope. The CGI recreation of Tarkin is close to perfect, but I still find that CGI’d
human beings have a funny look whenever they start speaking. If I were to grab a still
from Rogue One of Tarkin, he passes
100% as a legit Peter Cushing from 1977, but once he starts talking, that’s
when it starts to seem a little uncanny.
And Darth
Vader’s appearance in this movie, although brief, is probably the best
portrayal of the Sith lord since The
Empire Strikes Back. The filmmakers combined the look of Darth Vader from A New Hope with his personality from Empire to create the most chilling and
awesome version of him yet.
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| Heavy breathing |
However, this
film isn’t without its flaws. The pacing for one, especially in the film’s
first two acts, isn’t perfect and borders along being boring, with lots of
exposition-heavy scenes. It isn’t until about the midway point that the movie
picks up speed and starts giving audiences the thrills and spills we’ve been
waiting for. Unlike some of the best Star Wars films though, Rogue One’s re-watch value is limited only to its epic last 40 minutes, which is a little
unfortunate for a Star Wars movie. Also, even though the characters are all
likeable and easy to root for, a little more backstory to them would have been
helpful and would have probably given the first half of the film the additional
emotional weight it needed for audiences to be more invested in these new
characters.
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| Pew pew pew |
Overall though,
I must say I enjoyed Rogue One more
than I enjoyed last year’s The Force
Awakens, even if the latter of the two had better pacing and more
interesting characters. Rogue One just felt more unique. Plus, it does such a good job at illustrating the weight and sacrifice of the Rebel
Spies from the opening crawl of A New
Hope and ultimately makes the stakes in that film all the more important; it literally makes A New Hope a better movie, and that’s quite a feat if you
ask me.
Score: 8 out of 10
