If you saw this movie and wanted to join the endless complaints about how Star Wars has lost its way under Disney's ownership, modern directors don't understand the appeal and tone, etc etc, it behooves us all to remember that the original film (s) had a cultural impact completely disproportionate to their quality.

Despite advances in special effects at the time and the best editing on screens for a generation, they were Boys Own adventure, Saturday afternoon matinee serials of the type who used to be for kids who read comic books.

The problem the entire Star Wars franchise continues to face today is that we who fell in love with it are now in our 50s or beyond, and although we loved Yoda and Greedo, more sophisticated tastes meant we were never going to accept Jar Jar Binks or anything else that would only ever have appealed to the 10 year old in us.

And the tone, slightly silly characters and script in this film (which match the aesthetic perfectly, for the record) are just as good as any you can expect from something so pulpy. We've just been tricked by decades of longevity into thinking it should be more serious that it is. See the Batman mythology for another example (except plenty of directors have imbued that story with very effective seriousness).

So with that, you can expect (and will be supplied with) laughs, heartfelt moments, movement, action, sound, cute aliens, visual splendour and everything else a Star Wars movie is supposed to be.

It's a few years after the events of the series and Mando (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu are still happy, making a living hunting down former Imperial officers for the new republic for bounties.

When Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver, surely completing her bingo card of appearing in every iconic sci-fi franchise of the modern era) assigns Mando to bring in the high ranking Commander Coin, she sends him off to talk to the Hutt twins, the brother and sister of the recently deceased Jabba who run the Hutt crime empire after their exile from Tatooine in the events of The Book of Boba Fett, and who claim to have information on Coin's whereabouts.

The twins tell Mando they'll tell him where Coin is if they rescue their nephew, Rotta (Jeremy Allen White) from his captivity by a rival gangster on another planet.

But when Mando and Grogu get there, they find Rotta is a feted fighter in a gladiator tournament, loved by the people, having finally proven himself his own man after living in his father Jabba's shadow and only one fight away from freedom.

Mando goes to see (fights his way through a bar full of minions to see, rather) Rotta's boss, Janu, offering to buy Rotta's contract out so he can deliver him home.

But Rotta wants none of it, telling Mando the twins intend to kill him to steal control of Jabba's empire for themselves. Mistrust and corruption sees Mando and Rotta in the pit of a stadium fighting off monsters, and they have to escape together.

But with Rotta in his clutches and ready to fulfil his end of the bargain, Mando sees an easier way out when Rotta tells him Janu is really Coin, the Imperial officer he's on the trial of, posing as a local gang leader.

He swipes Coin and delivers him to Ward, intending for that to be the end of it, but the Twins don't take kindly to their agreement being passed over, sending a fearsome droid bounty hunter to bring him in. Just before he's overpowered and taken, Mando sends Grogu and his band of friendly helper mechanic alien things off to safety, so they jump in their ship and follow, intending to rescue him.

Now in the clutches of the Hutts and dropped into a pit beneath their throne room platform containing not a rancor but a pool with a gigantic snake monster, Mando is mortally wounded, and it's up to Grogu to help his erstwhile father heal and bring him back from the brink of death.

Their last task is to rescue Rotta, who the twins have intercepted and are keeping strapped into a torture device and who's proven himself a friend, and it leads to the final set piece battle of Mando and Grogu breaking out of their forested fortress while republic forces wing in to help.

There's an appreciable amount of VFX and practical effects on screen, although the Grogu puppet makes you realise there's still quite a gulf between the two - the thing occasionally moves very unnaturally for a living being. Other than that and all the hallmarks of a swashbuckling space opera adventure, what else do you expect?