Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016; Gareth Edwards)

GRADE: B-

By Daniel Barnes

*Opens everywhere December 16.

After the joyless vapidity of the prequels, J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens rebooted the franchise back to its original settings.  The film honored the past while also building infrastructure for many future additions.  It was a throwback and a step forward at the same time, almost pathologically rehashing visuals and story beats from the original Star Wars trilogy.  However, it also righted past wrongs by expanding the racial makeup of the ensemble and making the female characters more active.

Still, it was not a great film.  Abrams tried to serve so many masters that A Force Awakens ultimately became a little faceless and overstuffed.  In the end, it succeeded more as an exercise in Star Wars-isn’t-lame-anymore optics than as a fully rounded movie experience.  At best, it made the Star Wars universe feel tactile and human again, refocusing on the characters while remaining vague and anonymous enough to allow future franchise directors to make some corner of the galaxy their own.

Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the first of what will no doubt become thousands of Star Wars extended universe movies.  It’s an Episode III and a Half one-off designed to fill space between Episode VII and next year’s Episode VIII.  And although Rogue One thankfully continues the trend of character-based stories, tactile visuals, dynamic female characters and diverse ensembles, while also taking the franchise to some new and fascinating places, it still feels like filler.

“Capable But Unmemorable”

The first of several critical diversions from the classic Star Wars form comes right away.  Instead of a story crawl, we get a shock cut, followed by a series of eerily beautiful shots tracking a single spacecraft across a lonely planet.  These early scenes establish the backstory of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones, capable but unmemorable, especially following Daisy Ridley’s breakthrough role in The Force Awakens), a prisoner and outcast haunted by her past.  Years later, Jyn joins with a shifty Rebel spy (Diego Luna) and his sarcastic droid (Alan Tudyk) to learn more about the Empire’s newly built Death Star.

Rogue One takes place after the fall of the Republic in Revenge of the Sith and before the destruction of the Death Star in A New Hope.  However, it only associates itself with the 1977 film, even offering creepily spot-on CGI recreations of beloved human characters.   There are several beautiful and singular shots in Rogue One, and it’s less busy than The Force Awakens. Unfortunately, beyond adding some interesting visual texture and moral dimensions to the Star Wars universe, it’s hard to get over the fact that the story is a foregone conclusion, with the one-note characters to match.

Ultimately, this is a film about stealing plans, which is almost as lame as the trade embargoes and Galactic Senate resolutions of the prequels.  At this rate, how long before we get an entire film built around the origin story of Chewbacca’s bandolier?

Read more of Daniel’s reviews at Dare Daniel and Rotten Tomatoes, and listen to Daniel on the Dare Daniel podcast.