Solo: A Star Wars Story is the newest Star Wars movie directed by Ron Howard who took over from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller who were fired from the film with 3 weeks remaining on their schedule.
The story here concerns young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) and his upbringing on Correlia, his meeting Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) and how he got the Millennium Falcon and going on a big heist for a local Gangster (Paul Bettany.)
Solo is a fun ride and Howard is clearly having a great time getting to direct a Star Wars film (he directed Willow for George Lucas in 1988 and was in American Graffitti for George) and he brings an energetic sense of direction to the scenes and crafts some fun action along the way plus there is some really beautiful cinematography by Bradford Young with its many wide shots and landscapes Young is definitely one of the most underappreciated cinematographers working today.
And the performances for the most part are good Ehrenreich is solid as Han even if at times I just kept thinking of Harrison Ford Glover does a brilliant mimic of Billy Dee Williams’s Lando from Empire and Jedi but gets so little screen time he doesn’t get a chance to shine all that much, Emilia Clarke is okay as Qi’ra but doesn’t really stand out in the role and both Woody Harrelson and Paul Bettany are wasted in their roles Harrelson just comes across as grumpy and out of place while Bettany again gets so little to do it feels like a cameo.
And this is where the movie falls way short: Its screenplay frankly it isn’t much of one and as much fun as it is to see young Han and young Lando and their backstory it doesn’t feel special it just feels like 2 hour fan fiction like Rogue One in 2016 did “Here’s all this stuff in a movie that you’ve imagined in your minds for 40 years” and when you see it on film executed in a way that it feels very bland it takes some of the mystery away and it also doesn’t help that many of the new characters here are so boring and generic that you don’t really care that much about them.
And also what is missing is the character of Jabba the Hutt who was so memorable in Return of the Jedi after being teased so well in Star Wars and Empire having him in this movie could have solved the problem of not having a major villain ala Terry Benedict in Oceans Eleven to help anchor the story plus it would have given far more dramatic weight to the storytelling because we have that investment in Jabba and his gang of Bounty Hunters (“We don’t need that Scum”) and would believe they could have Han and Chewie on the run but we didn’t get that and the film suffers as a result.
And so that was Solo: A Star Wars Story a very disappointing Star Wars movie that hurts because a Star Wars movie like an Avengers movie should be something special and in a year when Infinity War made an Avengers movie special again this kind of warmed up second rate leftovers just isn’t good enough in a franchise where its original 3 movies redefined movie history and say what people will about the Last Jedi and Rian Johnson’s work on it at least he did take some risks even if he didn’t execute them as well as he could have, 1.5 out of 5.
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