Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.16.16
The Force is strong with this
one.
Rogue One is a crackling entry in the Star Wars canon, perhaps most accurately
subtitled Episode 3.95. It takes place immediately preceding 1977’s original Star Wars, and in fact can be viewed as
the events abridged in that film’s opening text crawl.
 |
| Once Jyn (Felicity Jones) agrees to join Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) on a mission to find and rescue her father from the evil Empire, she's startled to discover that her new partner's companion droid, K-2SO, is a former Imperial Enforcer Droid ... with a distinct inferiority complex. |
The fast-paced script — credited
to John Knoll, Gary Whitta, Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy — is equal parts heist
thriller and down ’n’ dirty war film: a fairly grim escapade, by this series’
usual standards, taking place at a time that finds the severely overmatched
rebel Alliance without much of the “new hope” promised by the eventual arrival
of Luke, Han and the many others destined to enter the fray.
This film’s essential place in
series continuity notwithstanding, director Gareth Edwards and his scripters
manage the neat trick of making it a solid stand-alone adventure, for the
benefit of any first-time Star Wars
viewers (assuming such individuals still exist). This adventure builds to a
terrific climax, while also delivering an unexpected degree of emotional
gravitas.
The prologue and first act are a
bit top-heavy with exposition and the need to introduce a lot of new
characters, but — once beyond the information dump — it’s smooth sailing.
Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), once
a respected scientist with the evil Empire, became appalled by the weapons of
mass destruction he’d been fabricating for his masters; he fled to an outworld
planet with his wife Lyra (Valene Kane) and their young daughter Jyn, hoping to
remain beneath the Imperial radar. As the film opens, they’ve just been found
by Imperial Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), a former colleague, and
now an implacable enemy determined to put Galen back to work on a massive new
project.
From the moment we meet him,
Mendelsohn oozes the “foul stench” that has characterized the best of the Star Wars middle-management villains.
His curled-lip sneer and quietly condescending tone make him the pluperfect
martinet.
Krennic succeeds in his task, but
little Jyn manages to escape and hide in a bolt-hole, where she’s eventually
rescued by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), a rebel guerrilla fighter given
considerable exposure in TV’s animated Clone
Wars series. (It’s nice to put a live-action face to this character.)
Flash-forward a number of years:
Jyn (Felicity Jones), now a young woman, is shackled in a military transport —
for minor crimes, most likely trumped-up — and scheduled for servitude on an
Imperial prison planet. She’s rescued by the Rebellion’s Capt. Cassian Andor
(Diego Luna), who brings her to Alliance leader Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly,
last seen in this role in 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith”).
Word has reached the Rebellion of
an Imperial pilot, Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), who has defected with information
about a heinous weapon — a “Death Star” — soon to be unleashed on uncooperative
worlds. Galen Erso is known to have designed and overseen the construction of
this horrible device, and rumor suggests that Bodhi knows where Galen can be
found. The Alliance desperately wants the plans to this Death Star, in order to
determine any possible weaknesses.
Unfortunately, the defecting
pilot has been captured by Saw Gerrera, whose increasingly unstable behavior —
and ill-advised incursions against the Empire — have estranged him from the
Alliance. The hope is that he’ll still regard Jyn as a friend, thus granting
access to Bodhi, and subsequently to Jyn’s father.
Jyn, who professes no “political
views,” reluctantly accepts this mission as a means of reuniting with her
beloved father, and perhaps proving that he has been coerced into building this
awful contraption. She therefore joins Cassian and his companion droid, K-2SO
(voiced by Alan Tudyk), a former Imperial Enforcer Droid that has been
re-programmed to be sympathetic to the Alliance cause.
What Jyn doesn’t know is that Cassian has received additional secret orders
from a hard-line Alliance officer: to execute Galen Erso on sight.
We’ve already seen that Cassian
is morally ambiguous at best, with a seasoned mercenary’s vicious pragmatism.
Diego exudes coldly latent menace, and we can’t help feeling that Jyn — despite
her considerable pluck — is destined to have serious trouble with him.
K-2SO, on the other hand, serves as
the film’s comic relief. The statuesque droid has a brittle sense of humor and
a gloomy inferiority complex worthy of Marvin, the “paranoid android” from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
K-2SO is given plenty of hilarious one-liners, Tudyk delivering them with
considerable timing and panache.
After arriving at the
Jerusalem-esque holy city of Jedha, in search of Saw Gerrera and Bodhi, Jyn and
Cassian encounter Chirrut Înwe (Donnie Yen), a spiritual Jedi whose oneness
with The Force proves quite impressive, despite his being blind; and his
hulking companion, Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang), a freelance assassin with the droll
habit of bringing a cannon to a gun fight.
Yen and Malbus give Chirrut and
Baze a mildly prickly, Mutt ’n’ Jeff dynamic, but it’s immediately clear that
both men are devoted to each other.
The pieces now assembled on the
board — allowing for the infusion of several hundred Imperial Storm Troopers —
Edwards and his writers kick the film into full throttle. Once beyond the first
hour of this suspenseful adventure, the pace never flags; editors John Gilroy,
Colin Goudie and Jabez Olssen keep the action sharp, employing the usual “Star
Wars” practice of cutting between multiple simultaneous narratives.
Meanwhile, back at Imperial HQ,
we see the odious Krennic reporting to an immediately recognized superior ...
and this won’t be the last familiar face to pop up, as events build to their
action-packed climax.
Jones remains front and center
throughout, deftly shading her performance to reflect Jyn’s emotional and
intellectual arc: from reluctant tag-along to full-blown Rebel warrior (once
she gets a serious taste of Imperial atrocities). She’s another plucky,
resourceful and courageous fighter in the mold of Daisy Ridley’s Rey, in the
master narrative that resumed with last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
As was true of that film, it’s
once again nice to see the crucial central role being played by a young woman.
At this point, it’s almost
redundant to mention that the special effects are superb; that’s always true of a Star Wars entry. The action scenes aside, though, Edwards and the
SFX crew also manage moments of thrilling poetic splendor. As the film opens, with
Krennic’s Imperial ship skimming across the ocean-lapped beach of an obviously
distant planet, the gorgeous vista stirs a romantic frisson akin to the scene, back in 1977, when Luke Skywalker stood
and stared at his planet Tatooine’s setting binary suns.
The ocean-laden planet of Scarif,
setting for the all-stops-out climax, is equally impressive, with island-based
cities stretching out as far as the eye can see.
Pure magic.
The emotional resonance is
augmented further by the stirring orchestral score, supplied this time by
Michael Giacchino, nobly standing in for John Williams. While delivering plenty
of fresh themes for these new characters and situations, Giacchino is careful
to reference long-familiar Williams cues such as the “Force Theme,” the “Rebel
Fanfare,” the “Death Star Motif” and the “Imperial March” ... the latter cueing
the arrival of a certain black-helmeted baddie.
Rogue One offers plenty of surprises en
route to its exciting finale, about which I’ll say no more, except this: People
are gonna be talking about this one ... so see it quickly, in order to avoid
spoilers.
Then
see it again ... which I’ll certainly be doing!
We loved it!
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