[Disclaimer: this review is based on the viewing of the Italian dub of the film. As such, all opinions on the quality of dialogues and acting are subjective and partial.]



Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One has quite a few things in common with two films from our very recent past. One is this summer’s disappointing Suicide Squad, about a ragtag group of outlaws on a kamikaze mission against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy; the other is Edwards’ previous effort, Legendary Pictures’ 2014 reboot of the Godzilla franchise for the American market.

With Suicide Squad, this first entry in the Star Wars Anthology line-up first of all shares a history of troubled production, marked by extensive reshooting and a rushed treatment of certain aspects of the film (Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack above all else, reports say). The result is very similar in both cases: like Suicide Squad, Rogue One is an unevenly-paced film, hectic in its character-establishing incipit, meandering in its expository middle, and bombastic in its grand finale.

With Godzilla, Edwards’ new opus shares two basic things. The first is the director’s penchant for a very specific set of visuals: like its older brother, Rogue One is an often dark and rainy film, rife with non-conventional lighting choices and moody yet impressively atmospheric directorial flair. The second thing – and you may consider this a very light SPOILER – is Edwards’ strange fascination for casting great actors made famous by complexly villainous TV roles only for their part in his films to be exceedingly brief, handing the spotlight in its almost-entirety over to their in-story offspring: it happened to Bryan Cranston in Godzilla, and again it happens here to his fellow fan-favourite TV baddie Mads Mikkelsen.

For all these reasons, most of Rogue One’s extensive runtime is a collection of good ideas which, while fascinating, don’t really seem to be enough to warrant an entire film revolving around them, and interesting characters with very little time – in comparison to the fairly large cast – to be given proper development. For all my doubts about The Force Awakens, at the very least that movie didn’t really give me any reason to wonder whether it had been worth the price of admission to the theatre. And yet, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

For luckily, all that radically changes once the film hits its long-awaited third act. Rogue One is essentially its last forty minutes, everything else being a sometimes-skipping (and tripping), sometimes-lurching exercise in build-up. It’s a long and oft-wearying hike to the story’s tipping point, but once the film gets there, the descent is the most thrilling of roller coasters. Rogue One’s climax is the Star Wars-set war movie that fans of the Battlefront video game series always wanted and everyone else perhaps never knew they did, and it’s a joy to watch from beginning to end.

So, an uneven, meandering lot of set-up and a very satisfying climax. So far, a decidely mixed review. What else does Rogue One do unabashedly well aside from its spectacular finale, then? For starters, its visuals: the old-school Star Wars aesthetic is a very pleasing old friend to revisit, and Edwards’ keen eye for composition – and marked 2001: A Space Odyssey inspiration, itself another element that recurs from his Godzilla – delivers a staggeringly high number of impressive shots, many of them amongst the very best the saga has ever offered. Every single shot involving space could be framed and hung in an art gallery (or become your next desktop wallpaper), and for wide-eyed sci-fi enthusiasts that may very well be enough to rush to the nearest theatre. There is one single category of effects that’s not quite up to snuff, but I’ll leave that consideration out as it ventures into spoiler territory. You’ll get it when you see it.

Next is the cast. Everyone does an at least decent job, albeit with no particular highlights, at least in my personal experience; the one honourable mention – and the people behind the film seemed to know this, given his extensive role in the plot – goes to droid sidekick K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), a bizarrely charming combination of bruiser and comedic relief archetypes. He and everyone else in the film comprise a swirling cauldron of interesting but perhaps too little-developed characters revolving around heroine Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) – herself a fitting addition to the long-standing tradition of strong Star Wars female characters –, but fortunately to a less maddening, more readily explainable degree than the similar hodgepodge collection of cardboard cutouts populating the cast of Suicide Squad. Everyone, including a couple old acquaintances, gets their own moment – or moments, in a few fortunate cases – to shine, and that’s what matters.

More than that, it’s the mostly-faceless collective of the Rebel Alliance that comes out of this film entirely transformed. As stated before, Rogue One is entirely a war movie at its core – the sci-fi setting is irrelevant here: the Death Star may very well be substituted for a Russian submarine armed with nuclear warheads –, and its protagonists are war-like people, not heroes. Whereas the Rebels of the original Star Wars trilogy were spotless crusaders fighting for freedom and all that’s good, these insurgents are spies, guerrilla fighters, assassins. This may indeed be a rebellion built on hope, but its foundations are in blood and sweat, and in the hard decisions of people who know their hands need to be dirtied. Rogue One may, surprisingly, be the first Star Wars story – at least in cinemas – that is not necessarily geared primarily towards an audience of kids.

So all in all, for all that it could’ve definitely used a better script doctor, the story does do some things genuinely right, even though it never gets enough time to truly let those moments breathe. Rogue One does, ultimately, add something of value to the expanded Star Wars mythos, layering some additional meaning on top of the events of A New Hope. Some characters and events are given a little more backstory, and the moral texture of the saga is greyed to an interesting degree. Does all that justify this film’s existence as anything more than a – pardon my French – cash grab? Probably not. But for Star Wars fans, it’ll likely quell your appetite for a little while longer, and whet it for something better – or so we should all hope! – come next year.

[Verdict: MIXED TO POSITIVE]

