After reflecting on it a day I still stand by my stance, you can tell the score was really mismanaged, it is used in the wrong places and is tonally jarring. The editing and writing are also very sloppy, the pacing is all over the place and has no room to breathe. Also, some nonsensical things happen to make the plot work.
But regardless, the shot choices, cinematography, acting I thought was all top notch. Ben Mendelsohn's character devolves into a whoopee cushion fart as the film progresses. I don't think the overall tone of this film really works for the Star Wars universe.
I'm in the middle of the road really, 5/10, 6 if I'm generous.
I'm really, really conflicted on this. Some of the action is awesome, I actually really loved Jyn overall - though not quite Rey loved, and the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous at points.
And then, it's super duper really tonally inconsistent. Like I'm talking some ridiculous levels of grittiness meets slapstick comedy here. Some of it works - other times it really doesn't. There's some plot convinces for sure which don't bother me that much (I'm a Nolan fan lol), but overall it's a really solid effort from Edwards. I'm kinda talking down on it now which I don't mean to because I loved quite a bit of it.
Probably between a 7.5-8 for me.
Side note: could've just been my theater's sound system, but did anyone else feel like the blasters lacked the punch they normally have?
the_red_ninja wrote:@Michael what do you mean "slapstick comedy"? I saw none of that.
It was a bit of hyperbole, but
there's only so many times the robot can hit the stormtroopers in the head comedically and me still find it funny. Less slapstick, but the bomb planting sequence seemed really, really, weird and out of place tonally.
But mostly the tonal inconsistencies stem from the reshoots - or at least I assume that's the cause. The same scene will go from super dark and pessimistic to overtly optimistic back to pessimistic etc. etc. It's not enough to ruin the movie, but there were a few scenes that kind of took me out of the film.
m4st4 wrote:Allstar could you please rank the actors/roles and say lil' something about that aspect?
Felicity, Diego, Mads (despite being brief) and Mendelsohn were the highlights.
Felicity gets three massive emotional moments I feel she really nails that adds true gravitas to the film. Mads gets one scene in particular that's one of my favorites in the film. Luna plays a very different sort of male lead in Star Wars, a very grounded sincere performance but also with a surprisingly hard edge that I did not see coming. As for a Mendelsohn, he's just always fascinating to watch, his outbursts are great but he adds a lot of subtle things.
As everyone has said Tudyk and Yen's characters are great fun and badass but acting wise they did not impress me as much. Whitaker had a unique characterization that is sure to be divisive but I really wanted more of him tbh.
I want to see it again before making final statements because I remember Boyega improved a ton for me on second viewing.
Also I liked Giachinno's score in this more than Williams in the TFA which is admittedly not glowing praise.
It really would've helped if we would've found out more about the characters. The only things we knew of Ahmed's character were:
him being a pilot of the Empire, being afraid of Darth Vader and that he's talkative. Thats it... How am I supposed to care about him when he gets blown up?