The Good
The acting is very good. Glover will get a lot of praise as he channels Billy Dee very effectively, but I also think the fears about Alden are unwarranted. I think he channels Ford in both look and voice in a lot of places.... after some reservation, I buy that they are the same person. Emilia Clark is also good (and I think people dump on her performances in Game of Thrones unfairly.... I think she's often deliberately projecting a sort of impetuousness that might rub people the wrong way, but makes sense for the character.)
And the planets, creatures, droid, vehicles.... wow. This is fully embracing the possibilities of modern technology in an excellent way. It does something these spinoff movies have done effectively, I think... combine the expansiveness of the PT with the grounded quality of the OT with a story worth following. Corellia is a city-world that comes off as more industrial and grimy than Coruscant; a different take on the concept. Kessel is a dingy mine filled with cool new robot designs that nevertheless feel like they belong; it also has echoes of Crait (maybe they were mining the same stuff there?). And Dryden Vos's Yacht reminds me of David Lynch's Dune, in a good way.
It did a good job expanding the character of Han, and I kind of felt that it makes his eventual fate more tragic. It's nothing like Luke's end, which is triumphant. This helps adds the necessary weight to a moment in TFA that didn't quite work for me the way it should have.
I liked the double-crosses of the finale, and in fact, I wish the movie had leaned into that a little more.
Some degree of subversive social and political commentary that will probably slip under the noses of people who usually bitch about these things.
Another Snoke theory in the dumpster fire (Hey, maybe it's Dryden Vos.... nope).
An interesting bit of worldbuilding... it's implied that the Empire is using the criminal syndicates for its own ends and has its own relationship with them. It tolerates or even encourages the criminal elements. In the Clone Wars, Maul establishes a base of power for himself in the underworld. Palpatine finds out about this, and duels his former apprentice. He won't tolerate someone operating outside of his control, but says he has a further use for him. I suspect Crimson Dawn is what he was talking about.
The Bad
Did they really have to put in that bit in the end about Han helping to start the rebellion? I would have been fine and perfectly happy if they just left Nefys Nest as a rebel movement, that, it's implied, eventually grew into the Rebellion. But then they had to go and make it on the nose so that we see how connected Han is to everything. This is exactly why I liked Last Jedi so much.... it pushed against the notion that everyone is connected to everyone else and went with the notion that it's a big galaxy (which evidently a lot of people hated, but whatever). Maybe I'm putting too fine a distinction, but while I buy that there were rebel movements in the galaxy, and Han might have smuggled them supplies, even for purely altruistic reasons, it would have worked so much better in the background rather than having a speech about "gee, maybe you'll join us some day." Basically, I like that plot element, I just don't like that final dialogue between Han and Enfys Nest.
I wasn't really feeling the two comic-relief characters introduced to kill them off. I liked the droid better, though, mainly because of the pansexual allusions (I like whenever the movies really lean into the weirdness of this universe... like space walrus milk)
The Not Sure About
It's crammed with callbacks and references. More than TFA or any of the prequels, I think. This included references to a lot of legends material, like way more than I expected, even super-obscure stuff like the 80's Lando Calrissian novels. I enjoyed it to some extent, but I wonder if it could have been toned down a bit.
I'm not opposed to Darth Maul making his big screen return, or even him being a crime lord. I'm not sure that he belongs in a Solo movie, though. Here, I guess the way he's used is fine, but they are obviously setting him up for more movies... I'm not sure if that will work or not.
Ok, so I've come across the exact same explanation for the Kessel Run before, in Legends (thought the details of why it's was made were different). On some level, I found it cute that they included that, but did they give the writer who came up with that credit? If not, they should have.
Also....the mines in Kessel in ANH were stated to be spice mines. Meaning, that when Han made the Kessel Run, it's implied he was drug-running. Here, it's hyperdrive fuel. I suppose there could be more than one kind of mine on that planet, but I guess Disney didn't want to go with the original implication that he was involved with narcotics. Understandable, and it will probably get overlooked by people because the movie references "Han shot first" in a way that's sure to please people who are passionate about that issue (I was never one of them...it's a dumb, pointless change, but it's not really a big deal.)
In conclusion
So this movie will probably be really popular among Star Wars fans are conservative (small c) in their approach to the material, but who are able to make peace with the fact that there's going to be a lot of these things from now on. Much more so than The Last Jedi was. Do I hate it for that? No, but it also means that I don't like it as much as the Last Jedi, a movie that I think the fanbase will be much kinder to as time goes on (and unfortunately, will probably be an outlier). This, I expect, will be the template for Disney's Star Wars films (assuming the productions will be less troubled). That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I want a little bit more. From the point of view of what most people want from these films, TLJ is closest to it. I think for the average person, TFA is too reverent (which I agree with), Rogue One too grim and The Last Jedi, which is too trickstery(? Screw you, I can invent words).
The two Star Wars movies realized within the past year represent two different directions for the future of Star Wars, and I suspect it will end up looking more like this than TLJ, although perhaps Johnson's trilogy, if it ends up happening, will be the exception to that. Fanservicey, action-packed, expanding the characters and universe in (mostly satisfying) ways, but not quite having the guts to do things that are totally unexpected or subvert expectations.
