Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), PG-13, ★★★1/2

May the Force be with us all.

Disney's plan to release a Star Wars movie every year seems to be working but does not soar because earlier in the year, people were confused as to whether this movie is a direct sequel to The Force Awakens. I explained to some people that this is an anthology film because this is an interesting story that can be well-told as to why the Empire is chasing the Rebellion ship that was carrying the Death Star plans. Now, I was sold on the trailers when they came out and while watching the final trailer, I was in. So, I saved this review for today because I watched it twice: my initial reaction was a bit lukewarm but I did not pay real attention so I watched it again and I paid attention to the story, characters and the visual effects. And, I liked it a lot more and even though I had issues with character development and a bit of the visual effects, this is a very good experimental film that deserves some great recognition for their efforts to deliver an awesome Star Wars movie.

Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), who worked for the Empire and his father has been taken away under director Orson Krennic's (Ben Mendelsohn) to work for the Empire again. She is transferred with the other prisoners at Wobani. But, suddenly, rebel forces break in and free Jyn and as Jyn tries to flee, she is stopped by K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk), an enforcer droid working in the rebellion. At Yabin, the rebels talk to Jyn about their father and Jyn replies that she has not seen him for 15 years and a person named Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) raised her. The rebels say that he is an extremist causing problems in Jedha and they have to find Saw and a captured pilot named Bodhi (Riz Ahmed) because it is paramount to find out what the Empire is building and plotting.

Jyn boards on the aircraft with K-2SO and pilot Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) to go to Jedha. When Jyn and Cassian roam around the city, Jyn notices snipers and they are in the middle of war zone as Rebel and Imperial people fight each other. A blind warrior named Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) and his trustworthy partner, Baze Melbus (Wen Jiang) defeat the remaining stormtroopers. But, they are all captured by Saw's crew.

Saw and Jyn get reacquainted with each other as Saw shows Jyn a hologram of her father, giving her a message that he went with the Empire to give the Rebels a chance to defeat them. He says the weapon they are building is called the "Death Star". He says that he made a failsafe in a tiny area in the Death Star in which they can destroy the weapon and the Death Star itself. Now, their mission is to find Galen and find the Death Star plans in order to restore hope for the Rebellion to defeat the Empire.

Stormtroopers on the beach.

This movie is awesome as the filmmakers and writers directed a very different movie from the franchise and gives us a fresh take on the sci-fi genre but also tackle the war genre. It is not as dreamlike or fantasy-like from the other movies. The movie has a blend of The Dirty Dozen and Inglourious Basterds in this Star Wars movie as rebels from other planets and other backgrounds unite to take down the Empire. And, I want to just dive straight into the third act: I can debate that this may be the best third act of the Star Wars franchise, combatting with The Empire Strikes Back. It becomes so action-packed but also organized in such great fashion as we see fantastic visual effects from the star fighters to the Imperial walkers. It is one of the best space battles, if not the best, in the franchise and has a great feel of a war epic when they are fighting on Scarif. Plus, there is an awesome scene towards the end that involves Darth Vader and the Force that is probably one of the best scenes in the franchise.

But, because of the third act alone, I give an extra half-a-star. I felt like in the first act that Gareth Edwards, the director, throws in so much material in the beginning that I got a bit confused as to how did the Imperial pilot get kidnapped, why was Jyn Erso imprisoned and what exactly happened to Saw Gerrera? There was not much of a blueprint to some of the characters that is established like the original Star Wars film or The Force Awakens. I wanted more background on these characters so I would have gotten to care more about them because only a few I thought were memorable characters. There was not as much arc in many of the characters.

Felicity Jones provides some gumption and prowess in another strong female Star Wars character but again, I did not find much rooting interest with her character because she did not have much background. With Rey in The Force Awakens, even though I said, initially, in my review of that film that she can do everything in her favor that she was not as interesting and may be a bit flawed, she had some background as to why she had the Force and why she was left on Jakku. Jyn Erso was basically rescued in order to do a job for the Rebellion and to maybe find her father. The two best characters provided humor and they are Chirrut Imwe and K-2SO. They had so much awesomeness and wit in their arsenal. Diego Luna did a good job with his character by having some second thoughts in his decisions that he was going to perform as a secret mission. I thought Krennic portrayed by Mendelssohn was an interesting character because even though he was a ruthless military director, there is some sadness beneath him that I will not reveal.

Director Gareth Edwards did a solid job making the movie but again, like his previous film, Godzilla, where he had less interesting characters, he had a first act that was a bit discombobulated and a bit slow. And, most of the characters did not have as much of a backstory. Also, Michael Giacchino's score was not a memorable addition to the franchise except for the last 30 minutes. However, this is an extra holiday treat for all the Star Wars fans who are eagerly anticipating for one since Episode VIII comes out next year. Despite a plodding and confused narrative in the beginning and not much character arc, the movie redeems itself in the main plot and the fantastic climactic action sequence in the end to restore some faith and hope for an experiment anthology series that we hope what Lucasfilm and Disney can see what they cook up next for us. This movie was fun. If I can say to people who are planning to take kids with them to this, don't expect to be as cheerful as it has a tonally dark ending.

***1/2