SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?
released OUT NOW! 12a | 135 minutes Director ron Howard Cast alden ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, emilia Clarke, donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany
Who ever really wondered where Han Solo came from? Most versions of his backstory told us he originated on a planet called Corellia, that he flunked out of the Imperial Academy as a pilot, and that Chewbacca owes him a “life debt”, but they’re just cool extras. He’s a smuggler, his best mate is a walking carpet and he shoots first – we learned that within minutes of meeting him, and it’s still more or less everything we need to know.
And that’s the problem with Solo, the weakest big-screen trip to that galaxy far, far away since George Lucas sold his empire. Like Disney stablemate Marvel, the modern Lucasfilm is too slick an operation to churn out a bad movie (even after the behind-thescenes shenanigans that saw Ron Howard replacing Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as director late on in production), but beyond the visually stunning exterior the latest Star Wars Story struggles to justify its existence. It’s as much an origin tale as Lucas’s prequels, so mechanical about ticking off the formative moments in its protagonist’s life – where Han got his name; first meetings with Chewie, Lando and the Falcon; the Kessel run – that it feels less like a standalone adventure than a two-hour wink at the audience.
Learning more about Han only diminishes the mystique surrounding Star Wars’ number one scoundrel. The project was arguably doomed from the start, because while Indiana Jones in Temple Of Doom, Kirk in JJ Abrams’s Star Trek and James Bond in Casino Royale have places they can go dramatically, evolution is virtually impossible for Solo. His key moment, the big life-changing epiphany, has to come in A New Hope when he comes back to save Luke. Here, aside from meeting a few new people and learning about the crime business, he’s just a cocky-but-charming rogue, destined to stay that way until a farmboy and a princess come into his life. Alden Ehrenreich does a decent job in the unenviable position of following Harrison Ford, supplying the necessary swagger and knack for quips without ever trying to do an impression of his predecessor. As good as he is, though, you have to keep reminding yourself that this is the same man we’ll one day see frozen in carbonite.
And more significantly, this Han is a much less interesting character than most of his associates, whether it’s loveinterest-with-a-murky-past Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), career criminals Beckett, Val and Rio (Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, and the voice of Jon Favreau), or the movie’s standouts: young “smoothie” Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) and his brilliantly outspoken droid first mate L3-37 (Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge). It’s Lando and L3 who carry most
Ehrenreich supplies the necessary swagger and quips
of the comedy in a movie that’s not quite as funny as it should be – and possibly thinks it is. Lacking the clear throughline that you expect from a great Star Wars movie (come the end, it’s a challenge to pin down what it’s actually about),
Solo is a surprisingly flat affair that’s uneven of pace, overuses the double-cross, and lacks a truly great set-piece – its two main action sequences are confusingly directed, and both based around objects travelling at high speed. The fact that one of those objects is the Millennium Falcon makes you care much more than you would otherwise – especially with all jeopardy limited by the fact that most characters are protected by the laws of the prequel.
And yet, when it comes to avoiding Imperial entanglements and opening a window on corners of the Star Wars galaxy we haven’t seen on the big screen before, Solo is a triumph. While a couple of its allusions to the wider universe are too on the nose – you soon tire of references to a certain crime lord on Tatooine – many are more clever and sly; stuff like nods to bit-part players, such as Bossk and Aurra Sing, a campaign for droid rights, and plot points that’ll only be familiar to viewers of Rebels and The Clone Wars. The glimpses of the wider crime underworld, with its multiple, Godfather-esque feuding Syndicates, set up a follow-up that could be much darker, denser and fresher – and really don’t need Han. Not every hole in Star Wars continuity needs to be filled, and the more future movies kick-off in their own direction, the better they’ll be.
When she auditioned, Phoebe WallerBridge hadn’t seen any Star Wars films – and had no idea what a “droid” was!