Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke

Synopsis:
A young Han Solo deserts from the Imperial army and kicks off his life of crime with a veteran smuggler and his crew.

Impressions:
I can remember when I first heard about this movie. I was skeptical of the whole anthology film concept, but Rogue One warmed me up to the idea and I thought with Phil Lord and Chris Miller at the helm, we'd get a fun little romp. Well, then they fired Lord and Miller and the massive reshoots commenced. I wasn't hearing good things about Alden Ehrenreich's performance and then the first trailer completely underwhelmed me. I hadn't planned on seeing it opening night, but I thought I'd at least give it a shot. I ended up figuring that maybe I'd catch it at the dollar theater, then not even that. My feeling of dissatisfaction with Episode VIII has been growing ever since I last saw it and all of Lucasfilm's shenanigans haven't helped in the slightest. I went from having rather good feelings about the new Star Wars to being almost completely turned off. If it wasn't just readily available on the airplane, I may never have seen this movie. Now, I'd heard it wasn't all that bad, which is part of the reason I was willing to give it a chance. To be honest, the moderate voices are right. It's a decent enough film. It's not a great origin story for Han Solo, but if it had been another character and maybe done as a made-for-TV or DTV movie, it would've been decent.

There's some merit in the idea of seeing Han as a clutzy dork before he grows up into a cool guy. (Donald Glover is far more plausible as a young Lando and even sounds a bit like Billy Dee Williams at times.) One of the biggest flaws in the film is its obsession with connecting almost everything we know about the character in the span of about a week or so. You don't have to tie everything in, guys. A few things, sure. If you thought the Prequels were bad about that, this is far worse. I did like Woody Harrelson as Beckett. Emilia Clarke was okay as Qi'ra. When she was on her soapbox, L-3 was insufferable, but in more relaxed moments, she was actually an alright character (but those moments were few and far between). If it had been more of a straightforward heist movie, I think it would've been better and not required nearly as much dumb to move the plot along. And though it feels a bit like kicking a dog while it's down, the original score failed to make any impression. Lord and Miller were supposedly fired for making the movie too silly, but it's still pretty silly. I mean, you're not going to take much of it seriously. For a rental, at least, you could do worse. Probably if it had been anything else, I'd say give it a watch, but I'm going to say take it or leave it.

Rating:
50/50