Movie Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) directed by Ron Howard

An origin story for Han Solo, lovable rogue of the original Star Wars trilogy, is presented in this action-packed story. Han starts off as a street kid hustling in hopes of getting off Corelia with his girlfriend Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke). Things do not go off as planned and they are separated at the spaceport. Han begins a life of random adventures trying to get enough money to buy his own ship, return home, and save his girl.

That very basic premise starts a series of fun but predictable action set-pieces that explain as many little bits of Han's backstory as possible. He picks up his co-pilot Chewbacca, he makes uneasy friends with Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), he gets to fly the Millennium Falcon, he does the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, he says a bunch of iconic lines, etc. The movie has no surprises and very little to add to Han as a character. Even so, the action and wheeling-dealing is fun. The movie is like a bland, unremarkable James Bond film that goes through the motions without doing anything great or new. It's entertaining as you are watching but more or less forgettable, except for hitting the regular stuff. Alden Ehrenreich does a very good job playing Han, with enough charm, earnestness, slyness, and brashness to be convincing.

Minor, new characters are hit and miss. The girlfriend obviously won't work out because Leia is in the future; Clarke gives a good performance anyway. Woody Harrelson plays a sort of mentor to Han and has to hit all these "fatherly" beats, which he does fairly well. Paul Bettany plays a higher-level gangster but Bettany is clearly just cashing the paycheck. Sadly, Lando is saddled with a robot co-pilot with whom he's allegedly in love, though that's only established by repeatedly saying it, not by any convincing actual interaction. It doesn't work because it's such a dumb idea. The robot is rather grating in its demands for "equal rights for droids" though most of the characters in the movie roll their eyes at this along with the audience. The filmmakers seem to want the droid to embody both comic relief and a serious statement about equality but fail to deliver either way.

The film is both enjoyable and worthless, a kind of summer blockbuster cash-in for a popular franchise. It only has the spirit of the franchise when it's directly using content and ideas already seen in other franchise movies. While Rogue One was a fresher perspective on the Star Wars saga, this was more like a greatest hits highlight reel.

Mildly recommended--for Star Wars fans to watch once to fulfill their duty. I was mostly happy with the film but I did go in with astronomically low expectations.