The 'Not-So-Critical' Critic:
on ROGUE
ONE (2016, 133 minutes, PG-13)
The Quick of It -
Welcome to the universe that should be.
To start, fair warning… I am not a huge Star Wars fan. I have enjoyed the films to certain degrees
and I believe George Lucas became a blight to the story in his later years, as
was proven with EPISODE I to III (and what happened to Indy, I will never
forgive him for that).
With that said, I believe this to be the best film to date… to
include EPISODE VII. In the hands of a
quiet but seemingly exceptional director Gareth Edwards (MONSTERS and
GODZILLA), we experience a strong story filled with many ‘memorable’
characters. The character development
and plot progression was a balancing act to quickly build what was given within
the short timeframe of one film. I will
admit the breaking away from some of the Star Wars traditions, such as the
scrolling intro, felt odd. This also
included some of the music, which they teased a few similar pieces at
times. It wasn’t horrible, but seemed
distracting for all the wrong reasons.
Don’t train us like Pavlov’s dog is all I’m sayin’.
The cast was probably at its best for the roles portrayed. Felicity Jones (of THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING,
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and INFERNO) as Jin Erso may not have been ideal but
she was surrounded by strong personalities, so may have been drowned out. She plays a stereotyped bad-girl, a
challenger of authority, and is asked to aid the Alliance in finding her father
at the start. Diego Luna, who will be
the lead in the upcoming remake for FLATLINERS, carried much of the core
story’s heart and interest. He played a
crafty and duty-driven spy, Cassian Andor, who was accompanied by the story’s
comedic element, droid K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk, of ‘Firefly’ fame). Cassian has been asked to do many horrible
things to further the rebel cause, but now finds himself able to do something
worthy of his skills and a means to redemption. They pull together a small force of rebels to infiltrate an Imperial
base to steal the Death Star plans.
Although knowing the outcome, the plot keeps you quickly moving
forward to an epic encounter. The
finale seems to act as a compilation of all those awesome battle scenes you’ve
ever wanted in a Star Wars film.
X-Wings flying over sparkling beaches, AT-ATs blasting through Rebel
ground forces, and stormtroopers hitting their marks. There was no holding back, and it made for better storytelling. Hopefully, this is a defining moment and
will raise the bar for later films.
PS - Vader does kick some serious butt!
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