To come out of a Star Wars movie feeling nothing in particular is weird. I have many opinions about many things when it comes to the Star Wars universe, having watched and loved this franchise for much of my life. ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ is the latest in Disney’s new era of Star Wars films, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller…until they left half way through production due to “creative differences”, and Ron Howard took over. It’s an origin story for the iconic and much-loved original trilogy character, Han Solo.
Yes, that’s the one. Smuggler, scoundrel, scruffy-looking nerf herder. Except, it’s not that Han Solo. The role filled by Harrison Ford in ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’, is now taken up by Alden Ehrenreich, with a younger version of the character. Is it really possible to recapture the charm of Han Solo without Harrison Ford?
I anticipated being thoroughly disappointed, but it turns out the answer is: eh, I guess so. Ehrenreich does a pretty okay job of smirking and telling people he is great at things. His performance, while somewhat stale, does include floofy hair.
I began to wonder what the point of this movie was. If it had one beyond moneymoneymoney. Maybe the scripts messiness isn’t because no one cared about the story, but thanks to the behind-the-scenes drama. Maybe it’s just bad writing.
‘Solo’ is meant to be an origin story, but the Han we meet in the beginning of this movie is the same one we’ve always known. He has no character arc, spending the entire film Han Soloing about.
Lando Calrissian is also brought back, played here by Donald Glover. He has a delightful wardrobe, and is suitably charming. Unfortunately, he is given nothing to do.
Lando is accompanied by his droid friend L3, who has the honor of being the most insufferable, screechy character in all of Star Wars. L3 is given a sloppy storyline that doesn’t come across the way it was obviously meant to, instead, it’s pure cringe.
Other major characters include Chewbacca, who is big and lovable. Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), Han’s love interest. Their relationship is quite dramatic but lacks chemistry, sense, and the film ends without resolving it. There’s Beckett (Woody Harrelson) who is Han’s smuggler mentor and spins some guns around. There’s the villain Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) who is angry, snotty and has sick scars on his face. Anyone else in this film is basically a cameo.
There was little to no story, even less character development, and complete lack of suspense. Sure, there were plenty of easter eggs for things we’ve seen or heard of before, to remind us that this is a Star War – because that’s what we want from these films, right? References to the other ones.
I found myself zoning out as one action sequence transitioned into the next. It’s not like the action is bad. It’s fine. There’s some ships and some guns and some space trains and some pew pew pew.
The problem is, there are very few quiet moments in between. The story barely has any breathing room. One specific thing in ‘Solo’ that I did like was a glimpse of emotion from Chewbacca, when we cut away from the action. The shot has been showed off in trailers, but the impact of it within the film was effective.
There’s just not enough of these moments to go around.
I left the cinema feeling sleepy. My twelve-year-old brother ran ahead of me, exclaiming what an awesome movie it was. So maybe it doesn’t matter that I don’t care for ‘Solo’. The Star Wars universe should be a vast wealth of stories of all kinds, and I guess that includes action-driven heist films with no substance.
My final rating is a half-eaten can of tuna out of 10.
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