Disney really messed up on this one, but it’s not a terrible movie. The problem is they metaphorically had Greedo shooting first. A Han Solo prequel story was never going to be some big, epic blockbuster. They should have had a little more foresight to understand that and plan accordingly.

It should have been a small story without all the bombast and excessive plot cramming. The movie is 2 hours and 15 minutes long for cripes’ sake. All they needed to do was establish the character, give him something big to do that plays to his character’s development arc, and throw in a couple little references for the fanboys. It should have been 1 hour and 45 minutes long, tops.

The cast was great, but Alden Ehrenreich wasn’t exactly the most convincing Han. It’s not really his fault, because Harrison Ford is one-of-a-kind. Woody Harrelson was incredible as usual. Donald Glover also played a suave Lando Calrissian and nailed it like only Donald Glover could.

Then there was Lando’s sidekick droid, L3, who was probably the most annoying part of the whole movie. The cinematography was too dark at times and it felt like canned Star Wars. I’m sure Disney wants to maintain some sort of consistency across the Star Wars cinematic universe, but let the filmmakers get creative. Finally, I also felt like there were just too many action scenes and not enough chances for the characters to breathe. It’s like so many big budget summer movies where the characters are doing lots of things, but they aren’t solidifying to where the audience feels connected and thus gives a shit what happens to them.

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