Written by: Jonathan Kasdan & Lawrence Kasdan
Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandiwe Newton
Rating: [2.5/5]
When encompassing a large universe filled with characters heavily reliant on one continuous story, lore builds up where everything fits into place. Everything remains established and orderly until the timeline begins to receive some tinkering, which not only begins to alter things in the past but then it has a knock-on effect on everything else already seen. Solo: A Star Wars Story serves as one of those prequels where it evidently raises more questions than it answers and answers more questions than we want or need.
Vowing to save his friend after being separated by the Empire, Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) begins a life of an outlaw, which includes working for Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson). As they go on their quests to raid for the purposes of money, they need to go on a famed mission in order to pay off the intimidating and far-reaching Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany).
Falling firmly in the category of films nobody asked for and yet we received, Solo: A Star Wars Story seeks to tell the origins of the famed character of Hans Solo. An iconic character within the very famous franchise in a galaxy far far away, who had a mysterious past and brought this rogueish cynicism to everything he did within the original films. Much of what made him so interesting is his checkered and unclear past, which this feature essentially wants to illuminate, but not a great effect, unfortunately.
While the feature has elements of it to enjoy much like its polished look and some fun set pieces the core of this feature remains one devoid of anything distinctly interesting about the titular character. Sure, we learn about how he receives his name, which elicited quite the eye roll, and the first interaction he has with his best friend Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo). However, these scenes do not necessarily add anything new to our understanding of this character, in fact, in some moments it even takes away from the mysterious shine that made this character so intriguing in the first place outlining a fundamental misunderstanding of the existence of this feature. This then has a ripple effect on the understanding of this character later when looking back at the originals and how it informs elements of his character.
This also occurs on a larger scale when looking at the place of droids in this world where they’re essentially slaves. One of the larger set pieces revolved around a slave revolt where the droids fight back against the oppressors keeping them captive. A dynamic that really shifts the way we look back on everything within Star Wars and the relationships humanoid characters have with these droids. This slave-master relationship never really becomes quite apparent in the original films, at least to my understanding and the feature does not do enough in this exploration to provide a further exploration of these implications.
Thus this film becomes all about its half-measures where it corners itself into telling a safe story with some confusing elements muddying the waters even further because of the cannon it so carefully needs to walk around because of this franchise’s insistence on keeping this larger story going. You could see the sprinkles of something quite fantastic in the bones of the feature, which does make me ponder the success of this film if it were just the story of a smuggler not named Han Solo or simply a non-Star Wars-related science-fiction smuggler film. It would have allowed for more chances to be taken and made for a much more engaging film overall.
None of the issues occurring in this feature land at the feet of the cast, especially, Alden Ehrenreich, who took on the unenviable job of picking up the mantle from Harrison Ford. Right from the announcement of the casting Ehrenreich faced unchecked scrutiny about whether he could portray Han Solo given Ford made this figure one of the coolest and most charismatic characters in all of fictional storytelling. With all of the weight of making it work, Ehrenreich did a fairly fantastic job in mimicking the mannerisms of the character but also making it his own as well. Something not many have given him credit for but certainly remains completely warranted as he brought this younger version of Solo to life.
Ultimately missing the mark but having the bones of something quite better Solo: A Star Wars Story, very much exists as the subtitle of the film. Plays it very safe in moments and feels like quite the futile exercise in shedding light on the last character that needed it within this cast universe of characters. Amid all of the misgivings, this feature still delivers some fairly fantastic set pieces introducing new elements not centered on those with light sabers and more so shooters as the feature tries to adapt this more Western look to Star Wars.
Films with Josh 
