Solo: A Star Wars Story exceeds limited expectations
There’s nothing better than seeing a movie with low expectations and being pleasantly surprised. Given how low my expectations tend to be for Hollywood tent-pole movies, you’d think it would happen more often. Usually, however, Hollywood movies are exactly as advertised.
A Marvel movie is a Marvel movie—pretty good action flick with some humor and smidge of heart. Comedies tend to try to too hard and put the best jokes in the trailer. Oscar bait dramas are character driven tear-jerkers trying to reveal a universal truth or push a particular narrative.
Of course, each film fulfills its own goals with varying degrees of success, but there are always indicators that a particular film didn’t go as planned. Justice League was plagued with reports of production problems and eventually Zach Synder stepped away and Joss Whedon stepped in to save the film. It turned out to be overwhelmingly underwhelming, a paint-by-numbers team up with a generic villain and CGI upper lip. It worked, but only barely.
Solo: A Star Wars Story has had similar reports. It’s no secret that original co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller clashed with Kathleen Kennedy, LucasFilm studio head with creative control over the entire galaxy. Their eventual removal indicated that the stand-alone Han Solo film was doomed.
True, there was some hope when Ron Howard was chosen as the replacement, but given that he needed to reshoot some 90 percent of the film, Solo looked like it had taken a lightsaber to the heart. But somehow Opie pulled it off. Solo: A Star Wars Story is one of the best entries into the Lucas-less galaxy, far better than it had any right to be.
The film is a prequel, of course. It tells the story of a young Corellian petty thief, determined to make a name for himself and escape the slums he grew up in. This time, Han is played by Alden Ehrenreich, a relatively unknown actor whose most recognizable film is Hail, Caesar!, a minor Cohen Brothers work from 2015.
There had been rumors that a dialogue coach needed to be brought in to help Ehrenreich with his Harrison Ford impression. Whether this was successful or not is up for debate (Ehrenreich’s take on the character doesn’t seem much like Ford to me). It’s also not necessary. Han Solo isn’t Indiana Jones and he’s a character that could easily wear many faces.
After a few minutes, Ehrenreich eases into the role and I stopped looking for Ford and accepted the character as presented. The truth is Han Solo isn’t terribly interesting on his own—he needs a stable of supporting characters to react to and flesh out the story.
He was helped in the original films with Chewbacca, Leia, and Lando. Of course, Chewbacca returns for Solo, as does Lando, but it’s the new characters, particularly Beckett (Woody Harrelson), an gunslinging mercenary and early mentor for Han who pulls him into the smuggler life and sets him on his path towards the Death Star, that helps the film be successful.
The movie isn’t perfect, of course. Most films aren’t. There is a distracting amount of fan service within the film, some of it frustratingly so. I’m constantly bothered by how small the galaxy appears to be. There’s absolutely no reason for Han to run across names and people familiar to the original series.
If there’s a bright center to the universe, Tatooine is supposed to be the planet that’s the farthest from, and yet it shows up as an important place across almost all of the films.
There are should be billions of stars and millions of planets scattered across the galaxy, filled with colorful characters. The chances that these characters know one specific throwaway bounty hunter from The Empire Strikes Back should be miniscule.
But these things are included as a wink to fans, so I guess it’s understandable, although I don’t know who would be seeing these films beyond fans, and one would think a Han Solo movie would be enough winking.
These are minor complaints, of course. Overall, the film is a fun chapter in the Star Wars saga—it’s certainly more fun than The Last Jedi.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is a story of luck, whether you believe in it or not. The original decision to use Lord and Miller as directors is questionable at best. For some reason, both Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios are willing to take chances on relatively unknown directors with quirky movies under their belts, trusting these small time artists with giant, difficult projects.
It could be argued that the studios are looking to develop raw talent, but often these filmmakers are sometimes asked to temper their instincts for the blander corporate product (Rian Johnson and Taikka Waititi notwithstanding).
One day they’ll be caught with their pants down. Ron Howard’s not always going to be available.