Solo is as first
for me: the first Star Wars movie I
just thought was okay. I’ve enjoyed the new Star
Wars renaissance so far, despite the constant bellyaching from certain fans
that The
Last Jedi is somehow the worse thing to happen to the franchise since the prequels, The Star Wars Holiday Special and The Ewok Adventures combined. But even as a casual fan without all
that baggage, a few red flags did show up during the production of the Han Solo
movie. One: the very concept of a Han Solo origin movie. The interesting part
of Han’s character arc begins when he meets Luke and the gang in A New Hope,
and his role is supposed to be as this mysterious, morally ambiguous everyman,
so giving him an origin could shatter that mystique. Two: the production of
this movie hasn’t exactly been smooth, from changing directors to massive
reshoots to the lead actor having trouble with his role. But plenty of great
movies had disastrous productions and turned out well despite it. Hell,
everything I just said also applies to Rogue
One, and that was way better than I was expecting.
Our story reveals that Han (Alden Ehrenreich) was a hungry lowlife
grifter desperate to break free from the starship manufacturing planet he grew
up on. He and his lady friend Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) manage to buy their way
off, but not before being separated at the gates. He enlists himself as an
imperial pilot before finding himself in league with professional thief Tobias
Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and his crew, and before he knows it, he and his new
friend Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) are recruited to steal a surplus of hyperfuel
for the Crimson Dawn, a crime syndicate led by the eccentric Dryden Vos (Paul
Bettany).
Whereas Rogue One
was the Star Wars rendition of a gritty war film, Solo is a Star Wars take on the heist film and the western. Han’s
journey is basically that of an army deserter turned wet-behind-the-ears crook
turned gunslinging outlaw involved in a clockwork caper with several moving
parts and a few double and triple crosses thrown in for good, while leaving
plenty of room for the anticipated beats like how he met Chewie, acquired the
Millennium Falcon, became frenemies with Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), did
the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, and the series of events that led him to
become the hardened enigma we know him as. In keeping with the western
aesthetic, there are a few familiar action sequences and set pieces like a
train robbery reminiscent of the broadcast pilot of Firefly, Alden Ehrenreich playing Han with the swagger of a cocksure
gunslinger, and a few on-the-nose parallels to boomtowns, land barons, quickdraw
showdowns, saloon brawls, Native American raiding parties and indentured
Chinese railroad servitude.
While the changing of hands did have me tugging my collar a
bit, the movie does work where it needs to, even if the stitch lines are
clearly visible. Ron Howard is a pretty reliable director, and although he’s in
his comfort zone when working on human-scale comedies, his willingness to
experiment with style in recent years shows through in the action scenes,
particularly the train heist and a mine raid, all brought together brilliantly
by cinematographer Bradford Young.
The acting is a bit of a mixed bag. Alden Ehrenreich, while
supposedly having so much trouble with this role that he needed an acting coach
onset, manages to pay respect to Harrison Ford’s original portrayal while
adding his own touch to it, along with some witty banter between him and Chewie
(probably one of the few things saved from Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s cut of
the movie). The real standout, however, is Donald Glover as Lando. While Ehrenreich
does fine, Glover makes his version of the smooth gambler completely his own, and
even surpasses Billy Dee Williams in a way. The rest of the cast doesn’t really
leave much of an impression, not even Woody Harrelson and Paul Bettany. One annoying
habit the movie has is introducing characters with the implication that they’ll
be playing a bigger role, and then dropping them unceremoniously. Two members
of Beckett’s brigade with well established relationships with him are brought on
for the train heist, but they don’t make it very long. One character I’m sure
will leave fans bitterly divided is Lando’s droid partner L3-37 (Phoebe
Waller-Bridge), who I can only describe as a “droid’s rights activist” who
creates a distraction during one of their capers by starting a slave revolt,
and will completely change the way you see the Millennium Falcon.
This isn’t helped by the fact that the pacing takes a while
to picks up steam and then runs out just as it’s approaching the finish line. I
never felt like it turned bad at any point, but it felt like it was sticking on
the right course before relapsing into the conventional good-vs-evil dynamic,
which wasn’t a deal breaker but felt especially insulting since Han’s entire
role in the Star Wars saga is that he’s
the morally ambivalent scoundrel with a heart of gold, so doing it here felt
like a bit of a cop-out. There’s a surprise appearance at the end from a
character I wasn’t expecting to see whose appearance was really unnecessary and
raised a lot of question, and it seemed like their only real purpose seems to
be to open potential for other spinoffs. I won’t say who it is here, but I have
a feeling the writers were looking over Infinity
War’s shoulder when this decision
was made.
Bottom line, Solo
is easily the most lukewarm experience I’ve ever had with a Star Wars movie. It’s enjoyable, but not
exciting or emotionally investing. It doesn’t have the striking visuals or
reflection of its own legacy as The Last Jedi or Rogue One, its main modus
operandi is validating its audience for recognizing the little tidbits of Han’s
backstory that were only alluded to before. I don’t regret seeing it, but I
have no real desire to see it again, and I don’t think it’s worth more than a
matinee. And for a Star Wars movie,
that feels really weird to say.
6/10
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