‘Solo’ is a fun romp for fans that soars
“I’ve got a really good feeling about this.”
Alden Ehrenreich’s new, younger version of Han Solo says this pretty late in the course of “Solo: A Star Wars Story” as things are, as you would expect, getting pretty dicey for our hero.
The line is, of course, a twist on a very familiar line from previous “Star Wars” films. It is just one of the myriad nice little touches that makes “Solo” — Disney-owned Lucasfilm’s second stand-alone bigscreen “Star Wars” adventure, the first being 2016’s likewise solid “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” — an enjoyable experience set long ago in a galaxy far, far away.
“Solo” certainly is more fun than “Rogue One.” It’s also a lighter affair than last year’s polarizing saga film, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” “Solo” doesn’t offer all the components of a classic “Star Wars” film — it’s devoid of lightsabers and Jedi and essentially is a heist movie in space — but it’s a fun ride.
Then again, it’s a fun ride on the Millenium Falcon. What’s more classic “Star Wars” than that?
Truthfully, it was hard at times to have a really good feeling about “Solo.—most notably when Lucasfilm had a high-profile parting of ways with the film’s original directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (“The Lego Movie”), well into principal photography. Veteran filmmaker Ron Howard, a safe if not inspiring replacement, took the reins soon after.
And then there was Ehrenreich, who had nice turns in 2016 films “Hail, Caesar!” and “Rules Don’t Apply” but didn’t exactly play “a Han Solo type” in either of those movies.
On the other hand, “Solo” was shaped in part by a man who has plenty of experience with the character. Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote the screenplay with his son Jonathan, was a co-writer on “Star Wars” films “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), “Return of the Jedi” (1983) and “The Force Awakens” (2015), each of which boasts a heaping helping of Han.
Not surprisingly, the Kasdans are — as writers of a movie featuring a younger version of an established character tend to be — concerned largely with filling in obvious blanks from the past. How did Han meet big and furry wookie Chewbacca? How did he encounter Lando Calrissian? How did Han win the Falcon from Lando? And just what in the name of Luke Skywalker IS the Kessel Run anyway?
(OK, if you want to get really nerdy about it, the Kasdans didn’t have to come up with what the Kessel Run is — that long ago had been defined in “Star Wars” lore — but they did have to figure out how to fit it into this story. After all, in 1977’s “Star Wars,” aka “A New Hope,” Harrison Ford’s Han Solo boasts the Falcon is “the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs,” which, you know, sounds impressive.)
The story of “Solo” begins with Han on his homeworld of Corellia, working for the wrong type of people and trying to make a score big enough for him and lady love Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke of “Game of Thrones”) to escape the planet and their current dead-end existences. Let’s just say that’s not as easy as they might have hoped.
Three years later, Han, who still harbors dreams of being a pilot after washing out of the Imperial Naval Academy, is fighting in a ground war for the Empire that doesn’t exactly thrill him. When a superior officer informs him that one of the reason the Imperial forces are there is to deal with “hostiles,” Han replies, “It’s their planet. We’re the hostiles.”
Han, along with future lifetime best friend and copilot Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), falls in with a criminal crew led by Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), which also boasts Val (Thandie Newton of HBO’s “Westworld”), who’s against having Han and the wookie along from the start.
After a fairly thrilling sequence in which they attempt to steal a valuable substance used to make the fuel for hyperspeed travel from a train zooming along a mountainous track, Han and Beckett encounter the ruthless gangster Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany). Dryden, who had hired Beckett for the job, agrees to give them one chance to make up for their failure before simply killing them.
For this next job, they will need a fast ship, which, naturally, leads them to Lando (Donald Glover) and the Millennium Falcon. Even with the Falcon — looking a bit different on the outside and nicer inside than we’ve ever seen her — their odds don’t look great.
Hey, hey, you never tell Han Solo the odds.
With “Solo,” Lucasfilm gets more right than it gets wrong, starting with the casting.
Ehrenreich was a risky choice, but his approach to Han wins you over minutes if not seconds into “Solo.” Sure, this Han is more happy-golucky than Ford’s ever was. And while that clearly has more to do with the desired lighter tone for this film, a viewer can chalk it up to the character’s youth. (“Solo” seems to be set a decade or so before “A New Hope.”)
In contrast to Ehrenreich, Glover (“Community,” “Atlanta”) seemed an obvious choice for Lando, and the actor delivers. As with Han, this Lando isn’t all that similar to the Lando we meet in “The Empire Strikes Back,” portrayed by Billy Dee Williams,” but it doesn’t matter. The multitalented Glover — who also is prominent in the music world as Childish Gambino — is a delight in the role.
Harrelson (“War for the Planet of the Apes”) and Clarke (“Me Before You”) are solid in their supporting roles, but this really isn’t their show.
It’s not all that easy to comment on the direction of Howard (“In the Heart of the Sea,” “Inferno”), who, reportedly, oversaw as much as 70 percent of what made it into “Solo.” His film stalls here and there, and, sadly, a couple of jokes about the capes Lando wears don’t really land, but, ultimately, “Solo” works. It’s easy to believe Howard is a big reason why.
The Kasdans clearly are another, with the elder Kasdan showing once again he knows how to write lines for Han Solo.
“Watch this!” Han says excited early on in “Solo,” before his high-risk action doesn’t go exactly as planned. It’s familiar, and it’s nice.
However, the Kasdans and Lucasfilm do make some questionable choices. For example, the much-talked-about pansexuality of young Lando — he has romantic feelings for his droid copilot, L3-37 (voiced ably by the very talented Phoebe Waller-Bridge of “Fleabag”) — doesn’t add up to much more than a distraction. (Related note: L3-37, who is concerned largely with the rights of mechanical beings such as herself, is an interesting character and should be explored somewhere in the expansive world of “Star Wars” fiction.)
The “Solo” decision makers also seem just a bit too concerned with making the dice featured in “The Last Jedi” important to Han in a way that feels retroactive and forced here, but it’s no big deal. If you’ll excuse the pun, it’s easy to roll with that.
Lastly, the movie has a bit of a villain problem — in that it barely has something. We’re not asking for Darth Vader here, but something more than we get.
Without saying much about the ending of “Solo,” it will be interesting to see if Lucasfilm decides to move forward with some type of follow-up. That could simply be a straight sequel, but you can’t help but wonder if the announced future series of “Star Wars” films developed by “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss may exist in the time and space between this film and “Rogue One.”
Well, that’s largely a thought for another day.
For now, strap in for “Solo.” You can have at least a pretty good feeling about it.