Rating (3 out of 5)

The best characters from Star Wars get an origin story but what is delivered is a mediocre and uninspired.

Plot:  Han (Alden Ehrenreich) and his girlfriend Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) are separated when escaping from a group of criminals.  Han searches for a way back to her and joins a group of thieves in hopes of earning a enough money to buy a ship and return.

What I Liked:  How can you not like Chewbacca?  He is by far the best character in the movie.  He is tough character that is the humorous sidekick of Han.  If Chewy had not been part of this movie this might have been a 1 star film.  The scene where Han and Chewy meet was entertaining and appreciated thought their backstory was well done. Although, Han spoke Wookiee and only did so once and never did again. I guess it was so they could establish why he could understand him.

Enjoyed the interaction with Lando and Han.  Again enhancing two good characters and giving us more about their backstory for future movies.  This along with the origins of the Millennium Falcon, that made for an enjoyable movie.

Beckett (Woody Harrelson) started off as a good character and I was enjoying the dynamic between Beckett’s team and Han Solo.  In particular I liked Rio Durant (Jon Favreau) and thought that character added a bit of levity to the film.

What I Didn’t Like:  The relationship between L3-37 and Lando was weird.  L3 was not a good addition to the team and would have preferred had less emotion L3 been the straight man, like an R2-D2 or C3PO.

A little tired of Star Wars films where the good guys stand up right without any cover and shoot their blasters but are never hit, while they pick off all the bad guys with their pinpoint accuracy.   It becomes a little tiresome after a while.

Not a big fan of the constant twist and betrayal. We already found out that the marauders are actually the rebellion that was one surprise.   Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) was the already the bad guy.  When Beckett (Woody Harrelson) betrays, it was one more twist the end it took away from the story. Then we get one more twist at the end.

Star Wars needs to be simple and straight forward.  Felt their was too much going on throughout this film.  Going here and there, and this person and that person.  Keep it simple and you will be rewarded.

Conclusion: Unless your a huge Star Wars fan, there really isn’t anything here to see.  This is just another action film with a fairly boring and predictable plot line.