Rogue One - colour me disappointed. Look you want to make a samurai movie where everyone dies a glorious death, that's fine. Even in space. But here's the thing. If I don't feel any attachment to the characters why do I care if they die?
Fantastic Beasts - Again not much of a story and two leads who just didn't inspire me. Hell they were straight out boring. No passion at all.
I agree on Rogue One. You can almost feel the crowd of corporation representatives tugging at the director's every move. Visually stunning moments though.
Didn't bother with Fantastic Beasts.
Came here to comment on these two films, which I watched on a long flight yesterday.
Fantastic Beasts was very disappointing, after the praise I'd heard for it. There was nothing to it apart from the SFX: no subtlety, no ideas, nothing. And even the SFX quickly became tiresome, though it might have looked better on a full-size screen. My brother also tried to watch it and fell asleep, and this was a daytime flight.
Rogue One was better, but you had to switch off the old grey matter, which I find hard to do. It helped that I had such low expectations after TFA. The robot was cool, the imperial forces as ridiculously incompetent as ever (which reduces the tension, as it becomes too obvious that characters are only in danger from the script writers, not the enemy). It's nice that the Death Star, despite being a wonder of technology and precision, was inaccurate enough to give certain characters time to say goodbye.
Also watched
Arrival, which was better. Best of all, though, sadly, wasn't SFF at all (though it dealt with fantasy in one sense) --
Denial, about the David Irving trial. I thought it superbly acted, and riveting, even though I knew the outcome. Why can't SFF films do this?