Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) ***1/2
After a second viewing of Rogue One (2016), I've cooled somewhat. I detracted a 1/2 * from my initial viewing, but I still like it very much. I just found more things to be nitpicky about, I suppose.
Jyn’s turn on a dime, for one—she went from wanting nothing to do with the Rebel Alliance to championing their cause a bit too quickly, in this viewer's opinion. For another, Vader’s first appearance is very unexciting. Also, while I appreciate bringing back James Earl Jones yet again to voice the character, it's obvious that he’s older from his inflection, which they didn't match properly (considering he should sound as close to how he did in Star Wars (1977) as possible). That said, Vader does receive the most badass moment of the film later on.
When R1 was released I remember everyone talking about how the CGI used to put Peter Cushing's face on another actor's body wasn't up to snuff. For some reason in the cinema, on the big screen, I thought it looked fine; not distracting at all. Oddly enough, it was on the home theater scale that it stood out to me—the mouth not quite matching up to the speech and most of all in the eyes, which look glassy. It never reaches uncanny valley proportions for me though, and I honestly still think it looks good, just slightly off.
Once again, I found Ben Mendelsohn's frustrated, power-hungry director to be the most consistently pleasing performance in the film. And, unfortunately, yet again, I found Forest Whitaker's performance, accent, vocal and dialogue delivery to be exceptionally poor (it took me out of the film both times). This time around I found myself not being as enamored with K-2, but about half the scenes with the robotic character still made me smile.
All that said, R1 is quite a good film—it's immensely entertaining and exciting. It has some of the best battle sequences of any SW film and I like the idea that the Rebellion are not perfect, but just as capable as the Empire of performing dirty deeds to carry out their cause.
Jyn’s turn on a dime, for one—she went from wanting nothing to do with the Rebel Alliance to championing their cause a bit too quickly, in this viewer's opinion. For another, Vader’s first appearance is very unexciting. Also, while I appreciate bringing back James Earl Jones yet again to voice the character, it's obvious that he’s older from his inflection, which they didn't match properly (considering he should sound as close to how he did in Star Wars (1977) as possible). That said, Vader does receive the most badass moment of the film later on.
When R1 was released I remember everyone talking about how the CGI used to put Peter Cushing's face on another actor's body wasn't up to snuff. For some reason in the cinema, on the big screen, I thought it looked fine; not distracting at all. Oddly enough, it was on the home theater scale that it stood out to me—the mouth not quite matching up to the speech and most of all in the eyes, which look glassy. It never reaches uncanny valley proportions for me though, and I honestly still think it looks good, just slightly off.
Once again, I found Ben Mendelsohn's frustrated, power-hungry director to be the most consistently pleasing performance in the film. And, unfortunately, yet again, I found Forest Whitaker's performance, accent, vocal and dialogue delivery to be exceptionally poor (it took me out of the film both times). This time around I found myself not being as enamored with K-2, but about half the scenes with the robotic character still made me smile.
All that said, R1 is quite a good film—it's immensely entertaining and exciting. It has some of the best battle sequences of any SW film and I like the idea that the Rebellion are not perfect, but just as capable as the Empire of performing dirty deeds to carry out their cause.
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