Plot points for the first act of Rogue One are discussed below.
Rogue One sometimes feels like it's trying to have it both ways with fans of the series. The opening moments illustrate the problem well. We see the Lucasfilm logo and the ten-word introduction telling us when and where we are, roughly. But there's no crawl informing us of the action preceding the film, no fanfare, no theme. But then we open with a tinkle of music, the camera focused on a small ship in the shadow of a larger body, point of view floating down, an image recalling each of the previous seven entries in the series.
The goal is to separate the "Star Wars Stories" from the main, numbered films—to what effect, I'm not sure. For better or worse, Rogue One is no less Star Wars than the prequels or the original series or The Force Awakens. It's a space adventure with funny robots and rollicking rocket battles that follows the adventures of an abandoned young child trying to make their way in the galaxy.
Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) sees her mother killed and her father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), taken away by Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), an Empire apparatchik surrounded by fearsome, black-clad Deathtroopers. Krennic needs Galen to finish building some kind of mysterious super-weapon and plans on holding Galen's family hostage in order to get him to finish the work.
Jyn escapes and hides in a cave; she is retrieved sometime after Krennic leaves by Saw Guerrera (Forest Whitaker). We skip ahead some years later and see a team coming together.
Rebel captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) is trying to find an Empire defector on the planet Jedha intent on getting a message to Guerrera, who now leads a splinter faction of extremist rebels doing street-level battle with Empire forces. Jyn is broken out of an Empire work camp by a Rebel squad with the help of K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk), an Empire security-droid who has been reprogrammed by the alliance. Together, the three of them are going to track down Guerrera and discover the secrets of the horrible weapon the Empire is developing.
On the Empire side of things, meanwhile, we get glimpses of a power struggle between Krennic and Grand Moff Tarkin (who is brought to life by motion capture or CGI or something to resemble the long-dead Peter Cushing; more on this in a moment). Tarkin's appearance is more than mere fan-service—though there's plenty of that throughout, trust me. Between Tarkin's scheming and Guerrero's dispute over tactics with Alliance leader Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly), we get a much better sense for the political situation of this far-away galaxy than we did in last year's Force Awakens.
I'm not sure it's really worth critiquing Rogue One for its reliance on last-minute saves and remarkable coincidences, just as I'm not really sure it's really worth giving it credit for being "dark" and "dangerous." The danger is light, given that we know how it ends and are given little-to-no reason to care about any of the characters. K2 is pretty funny!
I do think that Whitaker's performance as Guerrera is somewhat inspired—his take on the cave-dwelling terrorist gone half-mad with fear and hate is intriguing, and I wish we'd seen a bit more of him. Whichever executive signed off on Zombie Tarkin, on the other hand, should lose his profit participation points. Perhaps it's just because I was watching on the Air and Space Museum's giant IMAX* screen—that is, in the highest quality possible—but his face was just a hair off, his mouth didn't quite match his words. It's just distracting enough to be annoying, even if it doesn't quite inspire Uncanny Valley-style revulsion.
All in all, I think the first "Star Wars Story" is a success. Though if we're going to venture into the wide world of Wars, it would be nice if they got a bit more adventurous next time around—I think we've run out of Death Star plots, gents.
*Speaking of which: Before the movie, they showed a five-minute portion of Christopher Nolan's new film, Dunkirk. It's playing ahead of Rogue One at all the theaters on this list. Do try to check it out; it's worth the price of admission alone.