Recensioni de* critic*

Here, we just meet people all the time, whenever the committee in charge of the film feel like it, so it's a jumble. And though the threads do intertwine more tightly to bring us to a climax on one planet, it still results in one of those horrible intercutty all-at-once climaxes that became a problem around RETURN OF THE JEDI.

The modest but real charm of The Force Awakens lay in the expressions of surprise and delight between the actors (John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, especially)—the same rascally attitude conjured up long ago/far away by Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. Rogue One is wholly po-faced and comes off as a slog, right up to that CGI-drenched would-be grace note that ironically only serves to remind us of the humanity absent from this act of brand extension.

Much more aggravating than the fan service being offered here is how this emphatic franchise-building feeds into a nostalgia that is directly at odds with the film's refreshing political energy... even through all the techno-hubris and nostalgiaphilia, the backward-glancing Rogue One somehow makes important steps forward, as its anti-fascist payload thankfully manages to come through loud and clear.

The movie summons up two faces from 1977 and the results show the straitjacket of franchise engineering, where the effort to light some referential visual sparkler rarely gets turned inwards instead towards non-visual matters, like patching up character arcs that are shipping water, or indeed junking them altogether.

It has a perfect structure built into its premise, as a war film/heist movie hybrid set in a sci-fi milieu. The final act, which focuses almost solely on the Rebels' clandestine mission, is the film's most thrilling and satisfying segment, and could very nearly function as a short film about the sacrifice of military grunts in the grand scheme of a vast war. However, the rest of the film leading up to that is far too beholden to making cheeky references to the original trilogy.

I find Rogue One a tricky movie to critique because it stirred many, contradictory reactions in me, simultaneously annoying my critical faculties and getting my blood pumping. Although it bends over backwards to recreate familiar sights and sounds from A New Hope, it also uses that template as an excuse to shift ground just a few inches and avoids leaning too much on the regulation touchstones of the series.

It begins wonderfully because Edwards commits no unforced errors, his technique is expressive, and he sketches the thumbnail versions of the characters masterfully well. But as soon as we catch up to the grownup Jyn (Felicity Jones), the film's vitality fades into the murky air. The story ricochets haphazardly as Edwards hurtles us from one planet or moon to the next.

Except for a few jocose, fan-serving moments, the movie is a dour affair, lacking the charm and chills of J.J. Abrams's spirited Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), not to mention George Lucas's founding trilogy. Director Gareth Edwards, best known for the 2014 reboot Godzilla, focuses on the tense and visually splendid action sequences, and the performances suffer.

This is a relatively violent film, loaded with close quarters fighting and culminating in a massive, nearly 40-minute air/land/space battle that might be some of the most visceral action in the franchise's history. Director Gareth Edwards shoots everything somewhat docu-verite style, with a lot of handheld distinctive from the mostly tripod-locked style of the main entries. It's never less than exciting even if the story and characters are generally on autopilot.

It's not the dearth of originality that plagues every pore of "Rogue One," it's the lack of inspiration. Clumsily plotted and often flat-out stupid — halfway through, a key MacGuffin is lost simply because someone forgot to grab it, which is just lazy — "Rogue One" boasts thin characters played by great actors scampering about far too many planets with names that sound like obscure venereal diseases. It's a "Star Wars" knockoff that happens to look a lot like a "Star Wars" movie.

George Lucas and his collaborators were always aces at world building even when their storytelling failed, but this is the first entry in the saga that convinces us that its characters live in an actual civilization, with rules and traditions and a sense of history (and a religion) that they measure themselves against.

In many respects, it is a better film than last year's Star Wars: The Force Awakens: leaner, darker, with a distinct visual style and an actual ending that feels like a denial of blockbuster expectations simply because it shows basic narrative integrity. Returning to the movie influences and more limited color palette of A New Hope, director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) has created the rare Star Wars property that can be appreciated as a film.