Why not just keep in brief, since people are staying away from Solo in droves, and well…they should. In the subtitles, the word ‘dicey’ was translated as ‘je vois’, my best guess being that they heard the near homonym ‘I see’. Not even the translators care about the success of this film. Solo may still one of the most instructive films on how to engender boredom, if one could survive a second view. And I’ll just have to take your word you did just the zero times.

The story of becoming a cynic is not especially interesting, made worse by the fact that the character played by charisma flatline Mr. Alden Ehrenreich is a semi-cynic. Medium bitten? Soft bitten? Bitten inside of mouth when chewing tough beef jerky? His character’s journey goes from partially disillusioned to partially disillusioned without the decency of finding a different part.

Ms. Emilia Clarke is left as the damsel to be rescued in reel one (my version using ‘reels’ is better than the dated and incorrect ‘act’, since it underlines the time, ten minutes, after which we become bored), then appears as a staggering coincidence in reel five. Happenstance is allowed – once – at the beginning, when things get started. This event means you could have cut the first thirty minutes. Instead, you just remind the audience that you should have.

The one thing, as I’m rapidly becoming less brief: the film is an exercise in inevitability, of fill in the beats; he will meat Chewie, he will meet Lando, he will win the Millennium Falcon in a card game, etc. I confess to being miffed at not finding out how he got that vest, but you have to save something for the sequel. Which I may not see, to give you an idea of how I felt about the film.

These expected moments are not unlike the three act structure; we are just as used to a hero losing something then getting it back. In the case of Solo (oh right, he will also get His Name. In this film, the Galactic Empire gives him his surname because he was alone. Get it? It’s the same reason, uh, Mr. George Lucas gave it to the character to imply he was a loner. It’s a genuinely weird moment, like the Empire was in on a pitch meeting), these grand moments have no story content, merely resolving IRC chat debates, before re-igniting them.

‘Ignite’, too strong. Re-heating in the microwave? Using the hairdryer because the microwave is broken? Using a BBQ inside because the microwave is broken and getting vague off the carbon monoxide fumes? Getting closer, but just a bit too much fun.

Mr. Ehrenreich will also do the the ‘Kessel Run in less that ten parsecs.’ I know this because it is mentioned seventy six times – then shown (while being explained mind you) – then mentioned four hundred and twenty one more.

I did learn a valuable tip for salle three, especially when it’s crowded – sit in the second row, behind the spaces reserved for wheelchairs. Hmm. I wonder if I’m supposed to feel guilty about telling you this? Or is it like when you find that ideal parking spot next to the handicapped space so your door has that easy in-and-out open? If only there was a film character who could say stuff like this and get away with it. Instead, you’ll just have to hate me.

This is possibly the most egregious example of the Tetris quality of the film (that glorious moment when the blue bar appears just in time). Parsecs being measurements of distance and not time, scientists of the era thought this line very amusing in the original, a movie where you have Empires, Ewoks and sounds in space. They would probably find it less amusing that we know this now because of, well, Star Wars.

Forty years later, seemingly unable to let this go, there is an elaborate (read: interminable) setup re: how the Kessel Run always takes twenty parsecs, that there’s some space area that our heroes certainly won’t enter as a shortcut, etc. That’s fine, I guess, except that it’s to a fuel mine. Why do people race to a fuel mine? Why if there’s a heist that no one else has tried, of course!

The forced quality of making the Kessel Run in less than ten parsecs is emblematic of a film that must find a moment from the original and dully explain it and thereby create canon. There is no story to speak of, just repeating the feeling over and over:

What a twist?

What a twist!

What a twist.

What a twist.

What a twist.

What a twist?

What a twist.

Meisner crossfit.