One of two stand-alone STAR WARS spin-off movies (the other being SOLO), ROGUE ONE delves into the backstory behind what happened in that opening crawl of A NEW HOPE.
Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is not particularly happy with her lot in life, but is determined not to be made to suffer as she becomes a renegade in the Galaxy. Things aren’t easy when her father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen, CASINO ROYALE’s Le Chiffre) happens to have been partly responsible for the creation of a deadly ‘planet killer’ satellite as one rebel puts it.
Rescued from an Imperial war facility, she teams up with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and others to track down old foes and then becomes a key figurehead in the attack on a planet where the plans for the satellite are held, so they can steal them – and try and stop the Empire….
Neatly structured (yep, if you are a STAR WARS fan, you will pretty much understand it a whole lot more) – and a movie that celebrates the essence of what made A NEW HOPE so memorable with its’ depiction of what George Lucas and subsequently Peter Jackson described as ‘a used universe’ for the LORD OF THE RINGS films.
Jones is excellent as Erso in a contrast from her roles in the likes of CEMETERY JUNCTION and her Oscar-nominated performance as Jane Wyatt / Hawking in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, but the visual effects and action sequences homage and embrace the saga’s legacy in an old style Alistair MacLean wartime romp.