Solo: A Star Wars Story Review
Solo: A Star Wars Story stars Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It was directed by Ron Howard, however, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller deserve directing credits as well since they directed a large portion of the film before being fired due to “creative differences.” This movie is the second of the Star Wars spinoffs after Rogue One and shows the origins of Han Solo as he evolves into the selfish, morally ambiguous smuggler we see in A New Hope. This movie also marks the first time that an actor other than Harrison Ford has taken the role of Han Solo in an official Star Wars film.
The largest problem with this movie is that it doesn’t know exactly why it exists or what its purpose is besides to make money and fill in the gaps between Episodes 8 and 9. Therefore, the entire journey that the viewers go on with these characters feels completely unnecessary. However, that doesn’t stop this film from being entertaining and exciting in its own right. The odds were completely stacked against this film with reports of an acting coach for Ehrenreich who plays the lead, the directors leaving late into production, and large amounts of last-minute reshoots. Personally, I had extremely low hopes and went in expecting a disaster of a film, but I was pleasantly surprised by how the movie came together in the end.
The most notable issue with Solo is the awkward pacing and slow start that the film takes. It’s obvious when watching that there was a director change mid-production since there is a very clear and divisive part where you can see that Ron Howard took over. However, I’m actually grateful that Disney hired someone as talented as Ron Howard to finish directing since his portion of the movie, roughly the last half to 2/3, were the best parts and were by far the most entertaining and fastest paced. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller slowly set up the characters and how they met, but Ron Howard jumped in and took the viewers on the adventure they wanted to see. It wasn’t just the pacing that damaged that film though, but there were also numerous issues with the writing. There were far too many moments in Solo where it was so awkward that it was nearly unbearable to watch. From Han getting his last name to him speaking Wookie to Chewbacca, I was continually taken out of scenes by uncomfortable writing. This film was also packed full of unnecessary fan service moments that did nothing to enhance the plot or the world. This was especially disappointing since, in The Last Jedi, moments like Yoda meeting with Luke and Luke’s story ending with him staring into the binary sunset were more than just callbacks, they were powerful symbolic scenes as well. This film, however, had references to the movies that came before for no real purpose at all. But aside from the actual dialogue and writing, I had very few issues with the actual plot and structure itself. Before the release of this movie, the writers talked about how they wanted to take a different route from normal Star Wars films and make it more similar to a Western or a heist movie and I think the writers were able to capture this extremely well. Solo definitely felt much different than any of the numbered movies which was a nice change of pace for the franchise.
Moving away from pacing and writing, there was definitely a major issue with the casting choices as well: namely with the title character. Alden Ehrenreich had a difficult task to complete: he had to take over a role that was nearly universally loved and attached directly to its former actor, Harrison Ford. Ehrenreich is a fairly talented actor but he failed with bringing the character to life and, as a viewer, I almost never truly felt like I was watching Han Solo but instead an actor doing an amateur impression of Harrison Ford. It wasn’t until the last five to ten minutes of the film that I actually begin to see the Han Solo that I recognize but that was more of a credit to the writing than to Ehrenreich’s performance. On that point as well, I found it surprisingly interesting to see the evolution of Han Solo. As far as character development goes, I didn’t expect much as it was a character that’s already been a co-star in an entire trilogy and there’s not much left to show. However, the film’s devolution of Han from a naive yet soft kid to a hardened smuggler was done quite well. My only major complaint about Han in this movie has nothing to do with the character but only with the actor himself. On the other hand, whereas I disliked Ehrenreich as Han Solo, I absolutely loved Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian and I thought he captured the mannerisms of the character and Billie Dee Williams exceptionally well. Woody Harrelson also did a great job with Tobias Beckett and Emilia Clarke was fantastic as Kira.
To continue on the point of characters, the inclusion of new characters to accompany Han in his adventure was actually the highlight of this entire movie for me. In Rogue One, the other Star Wars spinoff as of 2018, the new characters felt excessive and underdeveloped, but I didn’t find that problem here. Tobias Beckett felt like a great mentor figure and although he seemed cliched for most of the movie, the conclusion of his story arc redeemed the lack of originality up until that point. Kira, being the other new major character was actually my favorite part of this entire film. Going into Solo, I expected Kira to be a meaningless love interest that would do nothing but undermine the arc between Han and Leia in the original trilogy. And while they appeared to be taking that route in the first few minutes of the film, the writers quickly subverted that expectation and took Kira down an unexpected and refreshing path. She wasn’t just a love interest, she was a strong character on her own with ambiguous motives that helped to develop both her character and the themes of the film. The only new character that I legitimately disliked was L3–37. She felt out of place in this movie and her role of being a voice for social change seemed extremely forced. Her scenes on screen were grueling and uncomfortable and I’m glad that her role was much smaller than I had anticipated.
As I was mentioning earlier with Kira about the themes in this movie, the ideas of selfishness, lack of trust, and moral grey areas were done exceptionally well. It’s far different from any Star Wars movie fans have seen before, save for some of the Rebellions behavior in Rogue One. Star Wars is known for its black and white morals, but Solo does a great job at showing that the world is not as clear as that. The Han seen in this movie starts off much different than the one Luke and Obi-Wan meet in the Cantina in a New Hope. He’s much more trusting and significantly more naive. Kira, Lando, and Tobias all do a great job of advancing Han’s character and helping to shape him into the man he becomes later in the series. Kira is especially important for this development and her character’s unclear and ulterior motives are done beautifully. These themes have a lack of subtlety for most of the movie with Tobias continually repeating them to Han in blatant quotes, but it’s all worthwhile when it comes together in the end. The final act of this film was my favorite part of the plot, aside from the well-directed speeder chase at the beginning. The heist style aspects came together magnificently and blended well with the themes that I’ve been discussing. The movie may have started off unbelievably slow and taken a while to find itself, but the ending was the complete opposite and showcased the fast-paced adventure that I’d hoped for. However, as I praise the final act, I must also discuss some of the parts that didn’t come together so well. There was a semi-continuing subplot about the birth of the rebellion that showed up at the beginning that the writers seemingly forgot about until the very end. It felt unnecessary since this film made no point in trying to tell the story of the rebellion so it seemed very out of place in the plot.
All in all, Solo may not have been a masterpiece but it is far from being a bad movie and it came together to be a very fun movie to watch. It had some great and refreshing themes, well-done new characters, and a fantastic final act. Although, this was brought down by some very poor writing, awkward and downright uncomfortable moments, awful pacing, and a distinct lack of purpose in the story. It had some great and memorable scenes that were negated by some equally awful ones which is why I would rate Solo: A Star Wars Story a 6.5/10.
