☆☆☆½
The good news about Solo is that it is the best of the recent, and seemingly inexhaustible, spate of Star Wars films. It's vastly superior to the "formal" sequels, and infinitely better than the first of the "Star Wars Stories," Rogue One.
But there's something less than entirely satisfying about Solo, which I think has to do with how it feels so tangential to the entire Star Wars series of films, which used to be called "the Star Wars Saga" but is feeling increasingly like "the Star Wars Property." Star Wars has now veered so far away from the story of how a galaxy got itself into (the prequels) and out of (the original trilogy) war that it's hard to know if there's any point to Star Wars at this stage other than making a lot of money.
Maybe that's not a criticism. Maybe it's just a certain resignation to the way things are, but I'm beginning to miss both the schoolboy earnestness of the first films and the grand (and frequently off-putting) formality of the prequels -- these new films mostly pretend those later films didn't happen at all and that the things that made the first ones so wildly popular are the only things really important to Star Wars.
So, except for one moment that left me scratching my head trying to puzzle out the existence of a certain character, Solo basically lives in the world of the original Star Wars movies, and seems to spend an awful lot of its time winking at the audience: "Did you catch that reference?" There are sets and droids and sound effects and fonts and characters and names and phrases that all sound familiar, and that will absolutely delight the fans.
Solo is like returning to your childhood home and finding it mostly unchanged, while your parents trot out the same photo albums and show us the same souvenirs of childhood: What thrilled us the the first time around, and delighted us the second time around, and amused us the third time around now make us ... comfortable, I guess.
If Solo feels more or less inconsequential -- and by so doing diminishes the light of the original and prequel films just a tad -- it isn't for lack of success on behalf of the actors, the filmmakers, the visual effects artists or, especially, John Williams, who this time around didn't technically write the music but basically did; the soundtrack is one of the most familiar things about Solo, repeating entire passages of music that Star Wars fans have memorized bar by bar.
There had been concern prior to release that Alden Ehrenreich was somehow not good enough as Han Solo, but here's a non-spoiler secret about the film: He's better as Han Solo than Harrison Ford. Yup, it's true. And in ways no one could ever have anticipated, Joonas Suotamo is the best damned Chewbacca there's ever been on screen (no slight toward Peter Mayhew; Chewie simply wasn't a major character in the previous films the way he is here).
Solo gets off to a slow, visually murky start. I couldn't understand quite why the movie looks so underlit until Han, whose surname is given to him as a disappointing throwaway gag, gets off of his home planet of Corellia, where he leaves behind a beautiful woman named Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke), who at first seems inconsequential to the plot but isn't.
There's far too much going on in the first third of Solo, with a train-robbery sequence that should be thrilling but is largely confusing and exhausting, but after a while things settle down and there's a lot of plot exposition and some additional bad guys thrown in, while the whole thing barrels toward the only reason it exists:
In the very first Star Wars film, Han Solo relates that his ship, the Millennium Falcon, "made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs," and since 1977 there has been fan debate over whether George Lucas wrote that line as a joke (since a parsec is a measurement of distance, information that is of no practical use or consequence whatsoever) or whether it meant something more. Solo intends to settle that debate, and the bulk of the movie revolves around making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Having seen Solo, I still don't really know the significance of the line.
Nor, really, do I care, because mostly Solo does everything it does with lighthearted jocularity and, for some fans, no doubt, downright hilarity, though for the average viewer it will be mostly just mildly amusing, I think.
Ehrenreich really is the best part of Solo, though as always Woody Harrelson showcases what an underrated actor he really is, and there's also a very funny supporting turn by Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the voice of a hyper-aware droid. Her role is takes on a rather weird spin toward the end, as Solo implies some extreme pan-sexuality on behalf of Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover, playing up the charm of a fan-favorite character).
Despite all of its positive attributes, though, Solo feels slight and entirely inconsequential, despite its hefty 135-minute running time. It held my interest more than any of the recent Star Wars movies have (again, give thanks to Alden Ehrenreich) and yet, I kept wondering why we were being told this story, and what it mattered, especially since Solo, like Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One before it, makes a big point of leading us right up to the original Star Wars.
Forty-one years ago, that film burst on to the scene with the shock and force (sorry) of something entirely new, a story that was both familiar and completely unknown. Solo fully embraces the familiar while eliminating some of the mystery and appeal of the original films in its jovial telling of the history of what was, after all, a supporting character. Who, we wondered back then, was this ill-behaved good guy with a gleam in his eye?
The key concept there was that we wondered, which was part of the fun. Solo takes away some of that fun, at least for the casual viewer -- though nowadays what I wonder is whether "casual" Star Wars viewers really exist. If they do, they might be underwhelmed by Solo, but everyone else might be delighted to have all the answers they never even knew they wanted.
Viewed May 24, 2018 -- AMC Burbank 6
2100
But there's something less than entirely satisfying about Solo, which I think has to do with how it feels so tangential to the entire Star Wars series of films, which used to be called "the Star Wars Saga" but is feeling increasingly like "the Star Wars Property." Star Wars has now veered so far away from the story of how a galaxy got itself into (the prequels) and out of (the original trilogy) war that it's hard to know if there's any point to Star Wars at this stage other than making a lot of money.
Maybe that's not a criticism. Maybe it's just a certain resignation to the way things are, but I'm beginning to miss both the schoolboy earnestness of the first films and the grand (and frequently off-putting) formality of the prequels -- these new films mostly pretend those later films didn't happen at all and that the things that made the first ones so wildly popular are the only things really important to Star Wars.
So, except for one moment that left me scratching my head trying to puzzle out the existence of a certain character, Solo basically lives in the world of the original Star Wars movies, and seems to spend an awful lot of its time winking at the audience: "Did you catch that reference?" There are sets and droids and sound effects and fonts and characters and names and phrases that all sound familiar, and that will absolutely delight the fans.
Solo is like returning to your childhood home and finding it mostly unchanged, while your parents trot out the same photo albums and show us the same souvenirs of childhood: What thrilled us the the first time around, and delighted us the second time around, and amused us the third time around now make us ... comfortable, I guess.
If Solo feels more or less inconsequential -- and by so doing diminishes the light of the original and prequel films just a tad -- it isn't for lack of success on behalf of the actors, the filmmakers, the visual effects artists or, especially, John Williams, who this time around didn't technically write the music but basically did; the soundtrack is one of the most familiar things about Solo, repeating entire passages of music that Star Wars fans have memorized bar by bar.
There had been concern prior to release that Alden Ehrenreich was somehow not good enough as Han Solo, but here's a non-spoiler secret about the film: He's better as Han Solo than Harrison Ford. Yup, it's true. And in ways no one could ever have anticipated, Joonas Suotamo is the best damned Chewbacca there's ever been on screen (no slight toward Peter Mayhew; Chewie simply wasn't a major character in the previous films the way he is here).
Solo gets off to a slow, visually murky start. I couldn't understand quite why the movie looks so underlit until Han, whose surname is given to him as a disappointing throwaway gag, gets off of his home planet of Corellia, where he leaves behind a beautiful woman named Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke), who at first seems inconsequential to the plot but isn't.
There's far too much going on in the first third of Solo, with a train-robbery sequence that should be thrilling but is largely confusing and exhausting, but after a while things settle down and there's a lot of plot exposition and some additional bad guys thrown in, while the whole thing barrels toward the only reason it exists:
In the very first Star Wars film, Han Solo relates that his ship, the Millennium Falcon, "made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs," and since 1977 there has been fan debate over whether George Lucas wrote that line as a joke (since a parsec is a measurement of distance, information that is of no practical use or consequence whatsoever) or whether it meant something more. Solo intends to settle that debate, and the bulk of the movie revolves around making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Having seen Solo, I still don't really know the significance of the line.
Nor, really, do I care, because mostly Solo does everything it does with lighthearted jocularity and, for some fans, no doubt, downright hilarity, though for the average viewer it will be mostly just mildly amusing, I think.
Ehrenreich really is the best part of Solo, though as always Woody Harrelson showcases what an underrated actor he really is, and there's also a very funny supporting turn by Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the voice of a hyper-aware droid. Her role is takes on a rather weird spin toward the end, as Solo implies some extreme pan-sexuality on behalf of Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover, playing up the charm of a fan-favorite character).
Despite all of its positive attributes, though, Solo feels slight and entirely inconsequential, despite its hefty 135-minute running time. It held my interest more than any of the recent Star Wars movies have (again, give thanks to Alden Ehrenreich) and yet, I kept wondering why we were being told this story, and what it mattered, especially since Solo, like Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One before it, makes a big point of leading us right up to the original Star Wars.
Forty-one years ago, that film burst on to the scene with the shock and force (sorry) of something entirely new, a story that was both familiar and completely unknown. Solo fully embraces the familiar while eliminating some of the mystery and appeal of the original films in its jovial telling of the history of what was, after all, a supporting character. Who, we wondered back then, was this ill-behaved good guy with a gleam in his eye?
The key concept there was that we wondered, which was part of the fun. Solo takes away some of that fun, at least for the casual viewer -- though nowadays what I wonder is whether "casual" Star Wars viewers really exist. If they do, they might be underwhelmed by Solo, but everyone else might be delighted to have all the answers they never even knew they wanted.
Viewed May 24, 2018 -- AMC Burbank 6
2100
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