[star rating=”3″]
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY. Directed by Gareth Edwards, with Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker
Jane Mayne
If there’s any predominant theme here it’s firepower. Basically 134-minutes of trigger-happy, pump-action gunning sandwiched within just a few slivers of hyperspace.
This latest war-driven Star Wars saga has been created as a standalone adventure, and the scriptwriters have gone kinda Rogue, taking a bit of leeway from the pop series by tracking a group of ordinary folk who step forward to make a stand when their home-turf comes under threat.
As expected, it’s an epic clash between the good, the bad, and some ugly, as a seemingly futile battle ensues to stop some seriously uncool super-blaster dubbed The Death Star being used to obliterate troublesome outposts.
It’s action all the way and there are some great panoramic vistas that keep you orbited in the fray. Viewers can also expect all the usual buzz words and concepts relevant to the Star Wars time zone: The Force, Stormtroopers, The Shield, and the like.
Full-throttle battle action
Most scenes are loaded with full-throttle battle action, which becomes a little wearisome. And one fleeting moment of quiet highlights the wisdom of how sometimes less is truly more.
A seven-foot droid (voiced by Alan Tudyk) provides the only comedic relief, and funnily enough this cute pile of metal ends up feeling the most substantial of any of the characters.
Another surprise is legendary Peter Cushing, who played the role of Grand Moff Tarkin, the Imperial leader first seen in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. Cushing actually died in 1994 at the age of 81, yet here he is as real as any other character in this little galaxy – now that’s CGI for you!
Jones initially holds promise as the soft heroine-in-waiting, but by credit-roll time she hasn’t summoned enough kick-butt energy to convince she’s particularly indestructible, or any kind of oestrogen-driven killing machine.
Don’t expect anything super-thinkie – this is a war and weapons outing all the way, with the hackneyed theme of good, versus the bad, and the ugly.
Genre: Action-Adventure
Rating: PG 10 – 12.
Running time: 134 min.
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