Pauline AdamekThe latest Star Wars installment, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, is big on the ‘wow’ factor, reminding us that the vivid worlds of this long-running franchise are ones that we love to return to, time and again.
Technically a spin-off, this is the first Star Wars Anthology film – a standalone story set shortly before the events of the original Star Wars movie of 1977 that triggered millions of sci-fi fans to geek out for years to come. In it, a band of Rebel spies conspire to steal the design schematics of a devastating weapon invented by the evil Galactic Empire… you know, The Death Star.
Rogue One’s story is solid and not overly complicated. The characters are fairly mundane, but their embodiment by some fine actors from across the globe is what helps this movie to match the iconic status of most of the movies in the long-running and beloved franchise. Danish star Mads Mikkelsen is powerful as Galen Erso, our heroine’s father. Brit celeb Felicity Jones is excellent as the film’s hero, carrying the storyline with ease. Mexican star Diego Luna provides her with an emotionally complex companion. We get a taste of the C-3PO factor with the robot character of K-2SO, a Rebel-owned Imperial enforcer droid voiced by Brit Alan Tudyk with a suitably dry wit. Hong Kong wushu champion Donnie Yen dazzles as Chirrut Îmwe, a skilled warrior whose lack of eyesight is in no way an impediment to his martial arts moves, evoking the legendary and fictional blind Japanese samurai Zatōichi.
You can read the rest of this glowing review here at Filmink.
Terry Morgan
