A young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) finally escapes the service of gang leader Lady Proxima (voiced by Bonnie Hunt) on the backwater planet of Corellia, but his lover Q’ira (Emilia Clarke) is left behind. After being kicked out of the Imperial Flight Academy and deserting from the Imperial Army, Han meets his future partner, the Wookie Chewbacca, and joins up with a group of thieves led by Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson). Beckett is in debt to the Crimson Dawn syndicate, and its ruthless leader, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) will kill them all unless they complete a daring and difficult heist of the valuable and volatile fuel coaxium. To oversee the mission, Vos sends along Q’ira, who has entered his service. But first, they will need a ship, which leads the group to try to obtain one from veteran smuggler Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover).
Depending on whom you ask, this movie’s cardinal sin ranges from not featuring a digitally de-aged Harrison Ford to deposing original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie) to even existing. Replacement director Ron Howard inherited a project brimming with both baggage and backlash, and though Solo is no one’s idea of an instant classic, it could have turned out far worse.
Despite the eyebrows raised by his casting, Ehrenreich does a fairly decent job as young Han (one that, in fact, comes Harrison Ford approved). He has the moral flexibility, the overconfident swagger, and the banter with Chewie down though this version is a good deal more idealistic than audiences are accustomed to. Presumably, that trait will be lost in the years between Solo and A New Hope.
The supporting cast is competent though characterization is somewhat limited (a curious blunder by successful Star Wars scribe Lawrence Kasdan). When Han is reintroduced to Q’ira, she is presented as a changed woman with a murky past, and though the film does not explore said past, Clarke’s performance gives her a conflicted quality. Phoebe Waller-Bridge does standout voicework as L3, Lando’s stubborn, irreverent droid co-pilot, and she gets some of the film’s funniest lines. Lando himself, however, is a bit of a disappointment. Glover has exactly the right screen presence, but the screenplay never treats the character as anything more than a joke. Meanwhile, Harrelson makes for a cynical, opportunistic mentor, but given the losses he suffers, one would expect more emotional range.
Solo’s plotting and presentation are similarly uneven. Howard is a competent director though not a particularly imaginative one, and this is a film that doesn’t stray terribly far from formula. An early attempted train heist plays like something that has done before, and if you predicted a certain character wasn’t going to make it past a certain point, you were probably right. That said, the stakes do get raised in the latter half as does the visual oomph. Watching the Millennium Falcon zip across dangerous skyscape with even more dangerous cargo is legitimately thrilling. Despite the absence of any Jedi, the film also foreshadows parts of A New Hope and establishes ties to the more familiar Star Wars mythos though your mileage may vary on how well this film integrates into the larger canon.
All told, Solo is an enjoyably exciting albeit shallow and not terribly memorable flick, lesser not only than a proper Star Wars film but also fellow spinoff Rogue One.
7.5/10
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