The bad cardboard cutouts killed the good cardboard cutouts. The good cardboard cutouts trash the bad cardboard cutouts. The good cardboard cutouts showed a little bit of cleverness. The bad cardboard cutouts? No, not that I could see.
That’s Rogue One (2016).
If you’re a boy at heart, then you’ll love the movie. Overwhelming odds, certified bad guys, self-sacrifice – at least in American culture, this is the heart of boy culture.
But for the rest of us? Midway through the movie, I honestly found myself wondering – have we seen the bedroom of any of the bad guys? The living room? I mean, what the hell is motivating the bad guys, anyways? Heck, I saw Episodes 1-3, which purport to show the creation of Darth Vader – and it was unimpressive enough that now I don’t remember. Why is he so hell-bent on exterminating the rebels?
At least the rebels are given some motivation in the form of a hellish bit of violence rained down on them.
All that said, the movie’s not a complete loss. The visuals are stunning and dramatic, the space battle was rather clever – for the good cardboard cutouts, at least. The bad cardboard cutouts tended to stumble over themselves a lot. And I suppose a devoted fan would argue this constitutes a face of evil, the one in which evil tends to defeat itself.
But, in the end, it’s just a boy movie. Maybe watching Bogie recently, the moral ambiguities, the facets of movies which really make them great stories, has spoiled me for something like this – but, in the end, will we be talking about Rogue One – or any Star Wars movie – in 20 years because of the issues it raises and explores through the movie? Or just because it was new and different, and Disney ended up spending a lot of money to make even more money?
My money’s on the latter.
