Solo: A Star Wars Story (that nobody asked for) - Spoiler-free review
Entry posted by Nathan Strum
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When I first heard that they were making a Han Solo solo movie, my first thought was, "Why?"
I already knew what I wanted to know about the character. I didn't care about unanswered questions from his past. Sometimes, a character is more interesting because you don't know everything about them. Take Darth Vader, for instance. He was a much more interesting character before the prequels revealed that he was an annoying, cherubic urchin, who grew up to be a spoiled, whining, obnoxious emo-brat.
The fact that the first Solo directors were fired and Ron Howard had to be brought in to effectively reshoot the whole movie didn't help assuage my lack of enthusiasm for the project. It's not that I think Howard is a bad director, but whenever you have to switch directors mid-stream, it tends to mean the film is in a lot more trouble than reshoots are going to fix. See for example The Good Dinosaur or Justice League.
I don't mean go see the films themselves... I just meant see them as object lessons. Fer cryin' out loud - don't see the actual films. They're stinkers.
But because it's Star Wars, I decided to go see Solo anyway. Much like James Bond, Star Trek and Pixar films, I have a long-standing tradition of seeing them in theaters.
Except I never did go see Spectre. Or Star Trek Beyond. Or Cars 3. Or Finding Dory...
I may need to re-think my traditions.
Anyway, I went to see Solo last week, and it was... okay.
That's it.
Just okay.
Not awful. But not really worth seeing, either.
Again, this boils down to answering questions that didn't need answering. It's much more interesting in Star Wars when Han says, "Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff..." and leave it at that. That's cool. That's mysterious.
Instead, we're told where he grew up, how he got his name, how he met Chewbacca, how he met Lando, got his blaster, acquired the Millennium Falcon, developed trust issues, and a host of other things that frankly, do nothing to improve the stature or mystique of his character. Instead, what we learn only diminishes the legend.
We're told about how he became an amazing pilot, but we never once actually get to see it. It happens offscreen, between two scenes that are apparently years apart. They completely skipped over it. That would've been interesting. Maybe even fun.
And you know those dice he had hanging in the Millennium Falcon? Well, they're here in this movie too. Prominently. But we're never told how he got them or what significance they are to him.
But we do get to see the infamous Kessel Run, and it's a massive let-down. I always assumed it was a race, or a smuggler's run that carried huge bragging rights with it, but it's not. It's hard to describe it without spoilers, but it's basically just a stupid way of trying to explain away George's "12 parsecs" scripting mistake, 41 years later. Look - whatever George claims now, it wasn't a navigation challenge. Because during the conversation, Han Solo was talking about speed. Not navigation.
Han Solo: Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Should I have?
Han Solo: It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. I've outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now. She's fast enough for you old man.
Fast enough. Case closed.
If you want to make it canonical instead of an outright scripting mistake, you could just say that Han Solo was so full of himself when he was bragging, he made a mistake, which then makes it a character moment that doesn't need correcting anyway.
However you look at it, it's a question we didn't need answered, because anything we imagined the Kessel Run might have been, was better.
We also find out why the Millennium Falcon ends up looking... different in Star Wars, than it does at the beginning of this film. Another question that didn't need to be answered. But hey - let's shoehorn that one in here, too.
And while we're at it - why not an unexpected, pointless, fan-service cameo? Sure. We'll throw that in, too.
Now, I suppose that I wouldn't be so apathetic about the movie, had the story been better, or the answers more interesting. But the fact is, they weren't. At best, this is the kind of B-grade story that would have been filler material in the old Marvel Star Wars comic books from the 70's and 80's. Or maybe one of the early paperback novels that came out during the original trilogy. But it's not movie-quality stuff. It's not even Clone Wars or Rebels TV level stuff.
That said, the movie is well-enough made for what it is. The actors are fine. The special effects are fine. It's not badly made. There are even some fun moments in it. It's just unnecessary.
As for the characters in the film, Donald Glover does a very passable Lando Calrissian. He's suave and charming, and seems to be having the most fun. His co-pilot L3-37 continues the Rogue One tradition of making the Droids more interesting than the humans. Woody Harrelson is fine in his role as Han's mentor (or sorts), although I couldn't tell you his character's name without looking it up. Paul Bettany is an adequate generic villain, again - totally forgetting his name. And there's a love interest played by someone, who is okay, if not memorable (again). Oddly enough, Chewbacca actually had some of the best moments in the film. He's also the easiest to readily accept as a younger version of himself, probably because his character doesn't have to be played by any particular actor (no offense, Peter).
Which brings us to the main focus of this movie... Solo himself.
Alden Ehrenreich is probably a fine actor. He does pretty well in this film. But not once did I think of him as Han Solo. He just... isn't. He's not Harrison Ford's Han Solo, anymore than Chris Pine is William Shatner's Captain Kirk. You can name them the same characters, but they're not the same. You can claim they're part of the same continuity, but they're not. Roger Moore's James Bond isn't the same as Sean Connery's. They're different characters. Even though they're supposed to be the same. And I just couldn't get past that.
I accepted the character he was playing for who he was in this film, but there's just too much of a disconnect to think of him as the same Han Solo I've been familiar with since 1977. So this might just as well have been someone else entirely, and they could have named the movie something else, and it wouldn't have made any difference.
And I guess that's the biggest problem of all. This film just doesn't make any difference. We know that all of those things mentioned above are going to happen. There are no real stakes here. No real surprises about this character. Nothing that fundamentally changes or impacts him. It's all completely inconsequential.
So while not a bad film, Solo was the Star Wars film that really didn't need to be made.
Disney needs to do better. (Hint: we don't need Obi-Wan Kenobi or Boba Fett films, either.)
Solo gets a 5.5/10.
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