Solo

Han is an enterprising street urchin working on a backwater smuggling planet for a caterpillar like crime lord. I presume that was the pitch line for Solo, and of course you would buy it. Here we get the back story of Han Solo, describing his maturation into the world of smuggling and being a good guy at heart. We see how he meets Lando and Chewie, and we get all of this with an appropriate return to the campy action of the original, while still feeling like a modern space opera. On the down side, it seems to me that after watching this big budget, tentpole, popcorn, summer blockbuster movie, it was all of those things and meh! at the same time. I wonder if we have come to the point where there are so many big budget, tentpole, popcorn, summer blockbuster movies every year all year around that it is now the status quo and not so special. They are just movies, not cultural events. It doesn't take away from the movie, but it does alter my emotional engagement after the fact.
4 stars (out of 5)