Experimentation can often lead to powerfully triumphant
results that no one expected to occur from the outset, while also leading
towards results blowing up entirely in your face. All the effort in the world
can’t prepare for those truly daring experiments, so sometimes you have to luck
your to the end. That is what Rogue One:
A Star Wars Story feels like on the whole. Something that took risks,
gambled with a franchise bigger than sliced bread, and flew haphazardly by the
seat of its pants towards an end result that is somewhat like an
elegantly-crafted fork folded in on itself: beautiful to look at and
appreciate, but with an ultimately wrong-ended point.
Rogue One takes
place in the days leading up to the events of the original Star Wars film, A New Hope. A ragtag team of rebel spies
and commandos band together to locate and steal the plans for the Empire’s
newest, and painfully un-focus tested, superweapon: the Death Star. It’s an
adventure that will span the underbelly of the Galaxy Far, Far Away and will
have our new heroes test the limits of their morality, daring, and willingness
to die for a desperate cause.
On the whole, director Gareth Edwards’s entry into the
franchise hits all the beats any fan of the franchise wants hit. There are lots
of little and large callbacks and connections to the original trilogy and the
wider universe, every new concept and idea introduced adds to the franchise
tapestry without taking any of it away, and there’s blue milk. Because there
should always be blue milk. Sometimes
this does become uncomfortable, such as when they begin to puppeteer the
computer-generated corpse of Peter Cushing around like a dead rat marionette
theater, but on the whole it’s all unobtrusive.
The central cast does its part to bring new dimension to
this universe, but not that much depth. While a good sense of each character is
gained, there isn’t enough time given to any one character to make them a truly
fleshed-out individual. Each one does bring his or her own new concept to the
table; like the morally-bankrupt rebel spy, the semi-Force sensitive martial
artist, or even the put-upon Imperial middle manager, but not much is done to bring these roles to their full potential. We’re
left with archetypes that have faint shadows of individuality.
The climax is therefore left lacking a strong emotional
punch when your entire main cast consists of strangers you hardly know. But
other than that, the final half of Rogue
One, compared the first half’s slow burn, is phenomenal. Epic space battles
and heated ground combat that rivals any other kind of combat in the genre.
This climax does what it can to bring as much emotional catharsis as possible,
but without those strong character connections, it doesn’t do much more than
offer a parade of sensory spectacle. It’s fine, it all works within itself, but
for what this story was trying to be I expected a lot more from it. The movie wanted me to care about these people and their plight, but it doesn't do all that much to make me connected to them as people.
Of course none of these pieces, for better or worse, work on
their own. There’s so much left unexplained and cut off from view that it can
do nothing but confuse anyone not at least somewhat familiar with lazer swords
and the aforementioned blue milk. As a deep fan of this universe, Rogue One drifts uneasily between
disappointment and mild enjoyment for me. I truly wanted to love this movie,
but the execution just left a lot to be desired.
Score: C
