Solo: A Star Wars Story

Maybe there's something to be said for lowered expectations. After the fired directors, the acting coach, the leaks from the set, and the brewing backlash, Solo arrives, somehow, as an underdog Star Wars movie. Sure, it's a mega-budget underdog about one of the most beloved characters in cinema history, but after the bad pre-release press, the fact Solo is simple, uncomplicated, and enjoyable can't be dismissed.

The pre-prequel prequel giving the origin story to that raffish rogue from a galaxy far, far away, Solo hits the ground running and doesn't let up, managing to make its 135 minutes feel brisk rather than a franchise-instalment chore. There's plentiful chase sequences, capers, set-pieces, and gags. Original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller may have been fired for wanting to make this too much of a comedy, but Solo still plays like a comedy; coming directed, as it does, by the narrator from Arrested Development.

Alden Ehrenreich, last seen cowpokin' his way through the Coens' Hail, Caesar!, plays Han Solo back in his feather-haired salad days. A shitkickin' "scumrat" from the mean streets of Planet Urban Decay, he plans to escape, with his best girl, Emilia Clarke, by his side. Eventually, by numerous turns of screen written fate, they end up in a rag-tag crew with a wookie, Woody Harrelson in a distracting hairpiece, Donald 'This Is Young Calrissian' Glover and his cape collection, and a posh-droid voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a kind of C3P-Fleabag. They're tasked with pulling off an unlikely job for Paul Bettany's English-gentleman villain, who's great at dinner-parties but a tad murderous.

Along the way, from job to job, there's laser-fire, varied landscapes on numerous planets, hijinks, endless references to other Star Wars movies, sown seeds of future rebellions, Glover making a further case to be the definitive pop-cultural figure of 2018 (the Calrissian Chronicles!), and not a single mention of the name "Skywalker". It's one long joyride for fans either old or new, taking its easy/breezy air from its central character. It's fun. And, this time, that feels like enough.