Solo: A Star Wars Story Review

The central problem is structural and it predates the production chaos. This is a film about how a character acquired his name, his ship, his coat and his friend, which means every scene arrives with its answer already known. Nobody is ever in danger, because we have all seen the sequel. Inside that cage the craft is better than the reputation suggests.

The Conveyex train robbery is a genuinely thrilling set piece with real geography and stakes you can follow shot to shot, and the Kessel Run finally has a shape instead of a boast. Donald Glover plays Lando as a man for whom charm is a full time occupation, and he walks off with the film. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's droid is funnier than the concept deserves.

Alden Ehrenreich has been unfairly maligned; he sensibly declines to impersonate Harrison Ford and finds a younger, more gullible reading instead. Where it stumbles hardest is the look. Bradford Young underexposes so aggressively that whole sequences read as grey mud in an ordinary cinema, which is a real cost in an adventure film. The late cameo is fan service aimed at an audience that had already stopped watching.