In some ways, they're the opposite of Leia and Han, with Jyn the roguish heroine with a spotty reputation and Cassian the tried-and-true Rebel with a Cause.

Jones and Luna are wonderful as Jyn and Cassian, both of whom have complicated pasts. While there have been plenty of rumors about the characters and events in this stand-alone 'bridge' between Episode III and Episode IV, the reality is that this story is very much in keeping with that you'd expect from that precarious moment when the Empire was basically at its most powerful. For decades, devoted fans have wondered why the Death Star had a design flaw that the Rebel Alliance could even think about exploiting. (It's certainly scarier than Force Awakens).This is the Star Wars story you were looking for but may not have even known it. Yeah, the blind guy who does martial arts is cool, but.who is he? The stand-out is K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk), a reprogrammed Imperial droid who always says whatever he's thinking without filter and provides some much-needed levity in what is perhaps the darkest and grittiest Star Wars film yet. Jyn's misfit band of brothers (played by Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Wen Jiang and Donnie Yen) has murky motivations which bleed into their murky characterizations which bleed into their murky point of being in the movie. These are just symptoms of a larger problem with the film, though: You never come to deeply care about these characters like we do Luke, Rey and Finn.ĭespite a great performance by Jones, who has a knack for making any line of dialogue sound natural (a special talent in the Star Wars verse) none of the interpersonal connections here, even Jyn's own ' I am your father' situation, feel as crucial to the core of the movie - or as emotionally moving.

It is chock full of big, Apocalypse Now-esque set pieces, with loads of explosions and rubble and indistinct shooting, but they work to make you miss the more personal feeling of a classic lightsaber-on-lightsaber duel.

The first half of Rogue One can at times feel like a slog to get through, the plotting often overly and needlessly convoluted - Forest Whitaker delivers perhaps the most bonkers performances in the galaxy far, far away, but you could excise him from the film completely without losing much.

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