Much better than I was expecting. I'm entirely biased regarding the Disney Star Wars movies as I've been a fan since before birth. As such, my main complaint with the mainline Disney Star Wars movies has been the Marvelfication of the series. This encompasses things like casting choices, filming techniques, editing shenanigans, pacing, type-cast directors, and especially the forced humor.
Both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi suffered greatly from Marvelfication as did Rogue One to a lesser degree. Solo, on the other hand, seems to have taken several steps away from the ever-deepening Marvel rut. It wasn't able to completely climb out of this box-canyon, but there were several occasions where I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of a cheap joke undercutting an otherwise straight situation.
These moments of near-subtlety were, of course, quickly forgotten in a haze of Disney cash-grabbing, false sincerity, pandering, awkward editing, nostalgia crippling, unnecessary devices, and propaganda aimed at children. As bad as that sounds, however, it simply wasn't as bad as it so easily could have been. One moment of subtlety that I really appreciated was a penultimate moment when Han blatantly shot first but nothing was said about it, no joke undercut it. For a franchise that now entirely embraces subverting expectations for the sake of subverting expectations, this movie subverted my expectations that this would feel like a Marvel movie.
The tone shifted abruptly at times but it didn't draw me out of the movie too often at first viewing. There seemed to be a battle (as opposed to a harmony) between the feeling of a buddy comedy and a western, each of which had their moments but didn't mesh very well. That, and the cadence of a racing movie was present at the beginning of the movie but never returned.
The score was fitting for the movie and entirely unremarkable. Imagine something like the soundtrack for The Shawshank Redemption: taking nothing away from the movie, but you're a weirdo if you track down the OST and blast it in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
I was annoyed by a very specific scene that I already pointed out in the thread about Solo so I won't go over it in detail here. Be aware though that the poor treatment of Chewbacca I mentioned in that post about that single scene from the TV spot was really the only poor treatment of Chewie I noticed in the movie, it was mostly very positive. Except the eating people. Honor is priority #1 for wookies and I don't think Chewbacca would ever eat a sapient being.
Qi' Ra showing up on Voss' ship as soon as Han got there was cringe inducing. I thought for over a minute that it was going to be a figment of Han's imagination but nope, she actually just happened to be there. Of the 50 million inhabited star systems, many with multiple inhabited planets, each planet containing possibly billions of sapient beings, she just happens to show up on this obscure planet in the exact same place and time as Han. I know "the Force" but it took me way, way out of the movie for a while. That and Maul, but...meh, I didn't hate that.
L3. She's going to get a lot of hate. A lot of people were already peeved that Kasdan Jr. decided to use his position in the movie as a soap box for promoting his sexuality but this droid is a joke. I like the design for the most part and she had a few lines that didn't feel contrived but elsewise, the droid was the embodiment of so much of what is wrong with what is being forced on Star Wars under Disney. There's almost no hint of the pansexuality claimed of Lando so that ended up being entirely the hubris of a creator imposed on the world of another without adding anything to the source material.
L3, therefore, ends up being Kasdan Jr. himself, imposing themselves on the rest of the world. Pushing pansexuality on a character established over the course of 30 years, wedging civil rights into the gap between the audience and the fantasy, projecting feminism in a shameful and tasteless manner. L3 is, unfortunately, a disservice to the film, a ham-fisted attempt to cram as much SJW propaganda as possible down the throats of the audience. This thing made me embarrassed as a fan.
Lando, on the other hand, was great. Not used to his full potential, but not ruined as a character by any means. Aaaand, that's really all I have to say about him, I hope there's another Han Solo movie and that he's Lando in it.
Loved Woody Harrelson back in the day but I actually would have preferred a different actor for the part. He's never a bad performer but he is always himself and I would have preferred a character actor to a personality act. I didn't hate him but his acting was obviously phoned in.
Alden Ehrenreich is not Harrison Ford. "Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious!" But seriously, we all knew that going in. As I wasn't expecting Harrison Ford, I was able to accept alden Ehrenreich as the new Solo immediately and his polished mannerisms didn't hurt, he really pulls off some Solo-specific charm and ticks.
There were a few miniature Canto Bights: Han being chased by the space kracken (kind of cool), the military minute, and especially the "slave revolt". The whole Kessel thing felt a bit tracked on which is unfortunate, as it was purported to be the core of the movie. I was also upset by the cargo mentioned in A New Hope being changed from spice to coaxium. I thought that spice would be interoperable from Kessel and the 12 parsec journey as it was such a fixture in Star Wars lore but...apparently Disney preferred a Mcguffin to a drug-related plot device. Meh. Anyway, the pacing was a little wonky but not horrific.
I suppose that's enough for now, just know that the movie was better than I thought it would be.