Solo: A Star Wars Story

If there was a character that people did and did not want to see an origin story for in the Star Wars universe, it was the infamous bounty hunter himself, Han Solo. Becoming a fan favourite within the original trilogy and being a character with a vague enough past that had the potential to be filled with plenty of juicy smuggling material, it felt like it had the workings for something to work with here but considering the less-than-amazing reception the recent films have received (with The Last Jedi leaving an awful taste in a lot of people’s mouths). fans were not as excited for this upcoming origin movie merely titled ‘’Solo: A Star Wars Story’’. Considering that this is the first Star Wars movie to be boycotted, the first Star Wars film to bomb at the box office, and the first Star Wars movie that most people did not want to see, it has suddenly become a recipe for disaster. Set on the backwater planet of Corellia, a young Han Solo (played by Alden Ehrenreich) escapes from his life on the streets by bribing an imperial officer to get off planet, but this comes at the cost of being separated from his love, Qi’ra (played by Emilia Clarke). After spending three years in a war, Han encounters a group of smugglers posing as Imperial soldiers led by Tobias Beckett (played by Woody Harrelson) and he eventually finds himself working for them along with his soon-to-be partner Chewbacca (played by Joonas Suotamo). They wind up have to make a run for a high-ranking crime boss named Dryden Voss (played by Paul Bettany), who is the leader of a syndicate known as the Crimson Dawn, which puts him on the path of other famous smugglers like Lando Calrissian (played by Donald Glover) and even Qi’ra, who is now working for Voss. Once the situation gets more dire, Han will have to decide where his allegiances lie in order to properly become the famous bounty hunter of the galaxy. Met with weak fanfare upon release despite decent critical reception, Solo doesn’t provide its audience with an experience that takes advantage of its premise. As a whole, the film offers a serviceable but overall pointless flick featuring weak characters, a predictable plot, an ugly visual and next to no intrigue about a character that should offer bucket loads.

With a Solo origin project being in the works since 2012, this Solo movie was passed from writer to writer and even continued to be shuffled around once the film was during production with directors being scrapped and the whole movie needing to be redone again from scratch. This gives a pretty good understanding of how messy and aimless a lot of the production was in regard to making an origin film about such a crucial character. This origin film needed to offer a fresh perspective on an age-character and give insight and context into who he is, why he became the way he did, and how much of his past shaped. Instead of doing this, the film stumbles onto a common problem with origin films based around characters that are liked for their vague past, it provides answers that make the character boring. The narrative for this film is predictable, incredibly standard, and so afraid to let any audience member figure things out themselves that it actively goes out of its way to spell out character motivations and plot twists before they even happen. The movie is split into two realms and mediocrity; the first half is a giving a clear goal and outcome for the hero but is home to some really unlikeable characters and boring set pieces, while the second half is a bit more entertaining and has more likeable characters, but lacks a reason behind the character’s actions and leads way to a lot of confusing plot points that feel incredibly disconnected from what was set up previously. The screenplay for this film is written by Star Wars regular, Lawrence Kasdan (along with his son, Jonathan Kasdan), so it’s not like this came from people who don’t understand the source universe, but nothing about this plot brings that usual Star Wars flair that people like, and arguably provides for one of the dullest experiences in this world to date (the prequels are terrible in many ways, but you can at least remember them). It shifts between mood and personality between these sections, with a slow-paced, moody thriller vibe in the opening act, to more of a conflict-of-interest heist feel in the later act, and neither is written in a way that makes people care about the content or what it’s even presenting. This change in tone and direction is easy to understand as the film was majorly redone after the initial directors, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller (who were responsible for working on projects like 21 Jump Street and more recently, The Lego Movie) were replaced due to creative differences between themselves and Kasdan and president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy. The eventual replacement was Ron Howard, who while a decent director in his own right with a few memorable films under his belt, he is not the right choice for this movie; producing a story with very little emotional investment, incredibly bland environments and designs, characters more interested in talking grand than being memorable, and a vibe that is incredibly safe, lazy and lacking that sense of adventure and fun that this franchise needs.

For a movie about HAN SOLO and promising to provide a film that would from what’s been shown, would only interest people due to the fact that it’s an origin story about him, it just frustrating that the film not only does so little with him, but actively takes away from the character by making him surprisingly tame and moral. This is a character that you want to see have a bit of a dark side and do questionable things to people in order to make his eventual turn later in the franchise feel more impactful, and in an origin story that seems to feature a lot of heist-based action, it feels like the perfect opportunity to showcase that greyer side of the character. However, that isn’t what is showcased and what is given is instead a very watered-down version of the role that was always on the good side, only stole from Imperials and isn’t a good guy not for any moral reasons, but just because he doesn’t think of himself as one. While Alden Ehrenreich is actually pretty good for the majority of the film and pulls off a pretty good Ford impression, the writing does not do him any favors or provide him with material that could expand upon the role in an interesting way. Disney’s insistence on keeping its leads squeaky-clean for the sake of brand recognition and merchandising prevents the character from being his true self and it’s a real shame. Qi’ra also feels like an incredibly wasted role, being stuck with a confused motivation, little to no personality, a pretty safely performance from the usually great Emilia Clark, a narrative purpose that feels more interested in future stories than the current one and shares absolutely zero chemistry with Ehrenreich (it doesn’t even feel like they need to be a couple in this). Woody Harrelson plays the typical drunken cowboy he always plays, Thandiwe Newton is pretty awful as Beckett’s partner, Val, Jon Favreau is pretty annoying as the pilot, Rio, for said smuggling crew, Warwick Davis and Erin Kellyman are so poorly used in their roles that you’d forget they’re even in the movie, and Paul Bettany is a completely wasted as the villain, who offers no intrigue, personality or even uniqueness against any other standard Star Wars bad guy. Bettany was actually the replacement for Michael K. Williams who originally played the villain of the film but couldn’t return for the reshoots due to scheduling conflicts, which is just bizarre to consider but arguably does explain the characters lack of screen presence or even overall purpose in the story. Lando is easily the best part of the film; with his attitude and charisma shining through as a nice beacon in this incredibly dull movie and Donald Glover provides a nice sense of swagger to the role, while containing the same kind of flamboyant flair that the character was known for. His robot, L3, (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) is also one of the few characters to stand out in this, as well as being one of the few who are lucky enough to be given a personality

This is easily one of the ugliest looking Star Wars movie ever made, which is a big problem in a franchise that is known for its colorful and unique alien environments (even to the prequels had some nice locations and colorful environments) The color palette consists of nothing but grey, orange, brown and black, which are very unpleasant and distancing colors that don’t do much to help the equally uninteresting look production design by Neil Lamont that doesn’t feel the least bit Star Wars, or even that alien. The creature designs are boring and are often very poor looking due to shaky CGI, the costumes by David Crossman and Glyn Dillon have sparks of color, but are also surprisingly muted, but the locations being so mud-covered and fog-ridden that they are hard to even make out most of the time. Even most of the cinematography by Bradford Young is not allowed to add that cinematic touch that pretty much every Star Wars film has provided. Outside of a few choice shots that call back to classic war and cowboy films, the rest is pretty forgettable and lacking the usual wow factor. The CG for the movie is very back-and-forth, sometimes it looks okay and other times it looks very unimpressive, but due to the largely bland designs, it only adds to the fakeness and does not lead to anything impressive looking overall. The music done by John Powell (with John Williams providing a main theme for Han) feels like an amalgam of several famous pieces from previous films being sewn together to be used in moments that are too heavy-handed with their visuals and motifs.

Solo is a movie that people wanted to like but knew deep down they were not going to, and through the messed-up production, it gave them about exactly what they were expecting. It’s impossible to know how the original version made by Lord and Miller would’ve been like, but in comparison to this, it feels like it at least would’ve left a more memorable impression. As a whole, it’s not the worst and it isn’t even the worst Star Wars movie, it’s just a horribly mediocre one that doesn’t offer anything of value and when said film is based on a character that people loved, they could be twice as harmful. With a confused boring plot, mostly unlikeable bland characters, ugly locations and visuals and a sincere lack of creativity and purpose, it definitely won’t be one that people will be clamoring back to see anytime soon. Not something that is going to last as long as the other films, but a single viewing would not be too painful to sit through. Taking a shot in the dark can either be a good or bad thing; this was a definite misfire.