Since acquiring the rights to Lucasfilm in 2012, Disney has been pumping out Star Wars movies non-stop in hopes to keep the franchise alive for the hardcore fanatics. Aside from continuing the Skywalker saga, spin-off movies were made to fill in the yearly gap for each Skywalker centric movies to give more insight to this gigantic fictional universe. Fans had Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016, and this year, we are treated to Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Solo is another Star Wars spin-off which follows everybody’s favourite space cowboy, Han Solo, who was famously played by Harrison Ford in the original trilogy. This time, Alden Ehrenreich takes on the iconic role portraying a slightly younger version of the pilot / smuggler; give or take 10 years before Star Wars. Han is on a mission to find his way back to Corellia after he vows to return to save his lover Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) from the hands of Lady Proxima. Along the way, he befriends a group of criminals led by Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and helps them with a score which could bring Han one step closer to achieving his goal.
Going into Solo, it is hard to ignore the rumours circulating the movie what with Ron Howard taking over directing duties after Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired halfway through the shooting process, Ehrenreich needing an acting coach on-set, multiple reshoots with Paul Bettany replacing Michael Williams as the villainous Dryden Vos, and so on. And as expected, Solo was a bit of a mess.
Solo failed to capture the essence of what makes a Star Wars movie great by playing its cards too safe without taking any risks or introducing something new to the universe. Everything that happens in the movie feels generic making it a textbook heist movie that audiences have seen a hundred times before. Considering that this movie revolves around a fan-favourite character, it did not have the emotional impact to drive the story forward, aside from a couple of nods to previous and future movies.
That being said, Ehrenreich, who has big shoes to fill, was great as young Han Solo. He embodies the iconic character and made it his own without trying to imitate what Ford did in previous Star Wars movies. There were instances of that Han Solo wit that Ehrenreich completely nailed proving that he is indeed the perfect match to play this role.
Other than that, Donald Glover was also a standout in this movie. Not only does he look like Lando Calrissian, but he projects the character’s charisma and charm that Billy Dee Williams brought back when he played the older version of the intergalactic smuggler. The chemistry between Ehrenreich and Glover too was spot on bringing a unique take on the two characters’ love-hate relationship.
However good Ehrenreich and Glover may be, it was not enough to save the movie from it being just a plain ordinary movie with no real weight to the franchise. Two movies are already planned to continue on this story but if Solo is any indication of how the trilogy is going to be, Disney might want to consider giving directors more freedom in their work to inject more variety in this juggernaut of a franchise.
[3/5]
