Solo: A Star Wars
Story (2018) Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, and Donald Glover Directed By Ron Howard
What are the odds that Star Wars INC. is just a publicly
traded company that will do anything to increase profits for its shareholders even
if it means destroying (by over saturation and poor storytelling) one of the
most beloved movie franchises in the history of cinema? Never tell me the…eh
screw it. Solo (A Star Wars Story) kinda sucked (I don’t want to bury the lead
here), Ron Howard (of F**king Apollo 13 and Gung Ho, two of my very favorites) sort
of just showed up with half a movie already made (Lord and Miller of The Lego
Movie Fame were shockingly fired after spending over a 100 million or so on
stuff Disney deemed unwatchable) and he mailed the rest in. A few decent set
pieces and some interesting performances could not save this shockingly inessential
and frankly boring Star Wars film. I rarely go out of my way to attack a film but
this film insulted me. I was always nervous that Disney was just piecing these
things together after a shaky but fun Force Awakens felt choppy, then a weirdly
edited Rogue One showed up only to be saved by a stellar last 15 minutes, a
sloppy and bewildering The Last Jedi didn’t help, and finally the coup de gras,
a sleepy, unenthusiastic Han Solo movie seals it for me, they are making this
shit up in post (why they need to make 2 Stars Wars films a year is beyond my
understanding, oh no wait: money). Alden
Ehrenreich is no Harrison Ford but doesn’t totally stink, his character is very
poorly written however (what is his motivation again? Is he a good guy? Oh ok
your literally spelling it out he is a good guy, please don’t show me the dice
again…smh), Donald Glover seems like his Lando is in a different movie, though
he is fun to watch, Woody Harrelson and Emilia Clarke are fine, but what are
their characters doing again and why do I care? I mean there are double crosses
that could be interesting but are never fully embraced, there is a cool heist film
in here but its chopped down to a 10 minute set piece (maybe that train robbery
should’ve been the whole film), and there are some fragments of character
development (Thandie Newton was great and I liked the robot revolution stuff
led by L3—37 voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), but nothing is allowed to breath.
Disney is so cookie cutter it can’t commit to making anyone good or bad except
maybe Paul Bettany who is clearly counting his star wars bucks while evil
laughing his way to the bank. We hop from planet to planet so much, (similar to
Rogue One) it is hard to follow why we are anywhere and for what reason. Han is
seemingly a smuggler who should be a cynical jerk but this movie goes out of
its way to run away from that, giving multiple moments to things I’m pretty sure
Harrison Ford’s Han would never do (I mean he would crash the Falcon for sure,
but give away his loot…um no). I may be
grading Solo on an unfair curve but is it too much to ask to have a compelling
and true to the character story ready before the cameras start rolling? Father
son Lawrence and Jonathan Kasden wrote
this film, but I have a feeling they were noted to death and I’d bet my Lego Millennium
Falcon their script is not what this film ended up being. I wanted to like this film, I went in with an
open mind, and I came out of it utterly disappointed, I took a week to see if I
was being too reactionary and now I can safely say Solo is watchable for sure,
but it is the first Star Wars movie you don’t have to see (not in a theater,
not anywhere), and you will be fine. Skip
It!
(The Shawshank Scale 1-10) I had a bad
feeling about this film, for good reason. Ron Howard I love a lot of your work,
but drop the IP stuff and stick with the biopics, never has the galaxy felt so
far away. BTW the score was the worst ever in a Star Wars film. I give it a
paltry 5.0 on the Shawshank Scale and I will list Solo as the first big disappointment
of 2018.
BONUS: TOP 5 STAR WAR
FILMS FOR ME:
1.
Return of the Jedi
2.
Empire Strikes Back
3.
A New Hope
4.
Revenge of the Sith
5.
The Force Awakens
AND THE THREE WORST:
1.
Solo: A Star Wars Story
2.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
3.
The Last Jedi
