SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

“I’m gonna be a pilot. Best in the galaxy.”

Perhaps the most surprising by-product of Disney acquiring the rights to the Star Wars franchise was that a Han Solo origin film would be hitting cinemas. Unsurprisingly, excitement for the project started pretty low among for most fans, and with all the behind the scenes troubles the film has encountered, it hasn’t really improved. Anywho, it’s finally here, and it’s about as average as I was expecting it to be.

The movie starts out with Han being basically homeless on the streets of his home world, Corellia, and his escape from said hell-hole. After escaping, he briefly enters the imperial academy before pursuing a life of smuggling and swindling, along the way meeting Chewie and Lando as one job leads into another. What ensues is, at least at times, is an alright adventure film. The plot gives way for a couple of fun action scenes and there are a few good moments scattered throughout, but the plot’s biggest problem is its lack of purpose. It doesn’t add to the immensely detailed world of Star Wars, instead choosing to focus on building its main character, and this doesn’t always work in the film. There are tie-ins to bigger things, but they never really pay off and they don’t always make a huge amount of sense when they try.

Speaking of the film’s characters, there is of course the titular Han Solo, portrayed by Alden Ehrenreich.

I say Han Solo, but having watched the film, I’d say his character was far more similar to Star Trek’s Captain Kirk than the rugged smuggler the Star Wars franchise knows and loves. I’d like to say Ehrenreich does his best in the role, and maybe he did, but he just wasn’t playing Han Solo in actions, speech or mannerisms, and it did nothing but take away from the film. I had to keep reminding myself that this character was the same as Harrison Ford’s, but there were times when the portrayal was just too different.

On the flip side of things, Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian was not only the film’s highlight, but also a spot-on impersonation of the character Billy Dee Williams brought to life all those years ago.

There are a couple of moments in particular in the film that Glover brings to the screen beyond perfectly, and the charisma and mannerisms he brings to Lando were superb. The biggest gripe I have with his character is that he actually gets very little to do in the film. He gets enough screen time, but he doesn’t do very much with it. But I feel like that’s more the error of the script than the actor.

As for the rest of the cast, they do alright, but they don’t really shine. The characters themselves are just about alright too, but they don’t lift the plot or make the film any better. There’s nothing really new about them, and when thinking about the genre of heist/gangster films, which Solo definitely falls into, they are anything that hasn’t come before in better films. All that being said, Paul Bettany does very, very well in the role of Dryden Vos, the film's central Gangster.

He only has a few scenes, but his presence as a villain is perfect and he easily steals the show from the more central characters.

It’s at this point I’d like to talk about some of things the film did well. The soundtrack was pretty good in itself, but mainly when it was using pieces from previous Star Wars films, beyond that, it was perfectly ok, but nothing hugely special, and if anything it gets repetitive by the end. The special effects were very good, especially considering the immense reshoots the film went through in recent-ish months. And, as said, the film does have a couple of very fun action scenes, one of which opens the film.

While the chase on Corellia opens the film, it's the train heist scene that serves as the plot's biggest set piece.

The use of pratical effects in the film is also very nice to see, as was the films cinematography, which at times was on a similar level as 2016’s Rogue One, which was delightful to look at.

All in all, my sense of Solo: A Star Wars Story is one of, well, indifference. It has moments that are good but on the whole it’s nothing special and the titular character just feels too different to what he has done before, and beyond this he’s far out-shone by the film’s more charismatic Lando. The story in itself is ok but it gets a little confusing towards the end and it’s biggest let down is how clearly it’s setting up a sequel, one I have no interest in watching. What characters that make up the film, Lando aside, are decent for the purpose of the plot, but they’re nothing new and some characters, or just one spoiler-y one in particular, have no place in a Han Solo film, no matter how good it was to see them on the big screen again. And I think my indifference towards it was potentially the worst outcome, at least for me. If I hated it, I’d have another film to take the piss out of, but I don’t hate it. It happened, and I’m in no rush to watch it again, if ever. Perhaps it's because it doesn't really feel like a Star Wars film at its core. Perhaps that’s what happens when Disney make too many Star Wars films. Eventually, they make one people just don’t care about. And something tells me Solo: A Star Wars Story is that film.