I have conflicted feelings about Solo: A Star Wars Story. It’s certainly great that the Star Wars universe is getting more world building and giving us stories about people we care about. But are the those stories worth it? In Solo, for the main character, the answer is mostly no, but for everyone else, it’s at least a “Ummm…sure.” And in the case of Lando Calrissian, the answer is “Why isn’t the movie about THAT guy?”
When we first meet Han (Alden Ehrenreich), he’s an orphaned kid conning his way to get out of the godforsaken planet he started on. He’s not alone though: he has a sweetheart Qi’Ra (Emilia Clarke) whom he wants to leave the planet and fly across the galaxy with. Circumstances separate the two, and Han spends the rest of his time trying to find her. Along the way, Han gets his last name, a scavenger leader to follow: Beckett (Woody Harrelson), a partner: Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), and a fellow scumbag gambling “friend,” Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover). Also keeping Han and Qi’Ra apart is Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), a gangster using his power to keep Qi’Ra and Beckett close and in line.
I was already worried about Solo despite all the misgivings above because of the behind the scenes shenanigans. Ron Howard was brought in to replace Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and the director (those two did the Jump Street and Lego Movies) because of the direction of the story. In addition, apparently Alden Ehrenreich needed an acting coach DURING production of the movie, which is never really a good sign either. In spite of all these misgivings, Howard makes the movie flow pretty well. I think to compensate, the director does a few things. He amps up the length of the chase and fight scenes to make the first half of the movie movie almost at a breakneck pace; the big setpiece is the famous Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, which, despite its darkness, was pretty entertaining to watch due to all the fan service going on there. Howard takes much of the heat off Ehrenreich by putting together a really fun cast around him to help soak up some of the screen time as well. I’m pretty sure once Glover signed on as Lando, they put more and more of him onscreen, because he just oozes charisma everytime he speaks. Paul Bettany is also quite good as Vos, playing a walking, breathing bipolar disorder. I don’t know what Ron Howard was given when he took over the project, but he did a really good job making the movie pretty coherent and entertaining.
So why isn’t my score higher you might ask? To begin with, Han Solo’s world and story has already been told better. When Star Wars first came out, the concept of a gangster/criminal underbelly of space exploration was an awesome, clever idea. This theme has been explored for decades now in TV and film. If there were targets for what Solo should be, Firefly and Guardians of the Galaxy have already nailed the target right on the head. Solo has ground to make up if it wants to get back on top of describing the world it created, and Solo: A Star Wars Story is more content to deliver fan service than expand upon it. There is a bigger problem, though. Han Solo is one of the most beloved characters in the Star Wars canon. As much as Luke was the hero of the story, Han’s presence gave the story some much needed swagger and charisma sorely lacking from the Skywalker boy. Sadly, Alden Ehrenreich is no Harrison Ford. I’m pretty sure he was cast based on his performance in Hail, Caesar!, a spoof of a Coen Brothers movie where Ehrenreich plays a doofus innocent. Unfortunately, the role of Han Solo isn’t a doofus, and Ehrenreich doesn’t have the chops yet to capture Harrison Ford’s brand of charisma for Han Solo, leaving a large vacuum at the center that Howard smartly tries to cover up with stellar pyrotechnics and supporting characters. The other big glaring hole here is how the movie fits into the previous Star Wars stories. There’s lots of cramming characters into places that don’t quite make sense on the movie timeline, and much of the mythology about the Force and Han himself is either sidelined or overexplained like the prequels, eliminating some of the mystery people had built up around the character and the universe and taking away some of the movie’s power with it.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is perfectly fine entertainment. For a movie with no history, that’s a perfectly acceptable goal to achieve. For a Star Wars movie, that’s simply not good enough. It’s tough to justify coasting when Marvel is swinging for the fences and doing a much better job building its world when Star Wars had a 40 year head start on them. To Ron Howard, I got no beef with you, your movie was fun enough. To Disney, maybe take some lessons from Kevin Feige on how to run a Cinematic Universe.