Everyone serves someone. In “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” an action-adventure arguably about life debts, ownership, and free will, the titular scoundrel smuggler serves many masters, but only as a means to an end for his own independence. For Lucasfilm, the company behind the ‘Star Wars’ prequel spinoff, ‘Solo’ suggests the filmmakers are beholden to the fans, obliged to convention, the bottom dollar and perhaps their Disney overlords. Because why else do you serve up a film so slavishly safe; one that almost never challenges its audience and delivers it precisely what it wants and expects. Is it a course-correcting maneuver given the polarizing reaction to the “Star Wars: The Last Jedi?”
Written by Lawrence Kasdan (“Empire Strikes Back,” “Return Of The Jedi,’ ‘The Force Awakens’) and his son Jonathan, and directed by fill-in filmmaker Ron Howard, the ‘Solo’ prequel begins in a lawless, dog eat dog period in the far, far away galaxy, where people fight for food, medicine, and fuel, while the Empire tightens its grip on the universe and crime syndicates rule everything else. Dystopian and even “Mad Max“-ian in tenor, what with its slave drivers and ruthless gangsters, everyone is a slave of one kind or the other.
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Young Han (Alden Ehrenreich), is a scum rat orphan, living in “Oliver Twist”-like indentured servitude. In exchange for food, shelter, and protection from the dangerous streets of Corellia—Solo’s decrepit homeworld—the young adult is forced to grift, thieve and plunder for his low-level crime bosses. With his girl in tow, Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke from “Game Of Thrones“), Han dreams of piloting across the galaxy and escaping his rundown, cutthroat planet. However, the kid, misguided, arrogant and brash, soon runs afoul of his masters and has to quickly make tracks leaving his love behind.
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Years later, after a stint as recruit and soldier for the Empire attempting to “emancipate” the galaxy, Solo crosses paths with a ragtag crew of rogues and cheats led by the shady Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), a cynical scoundrel who becomes a mentor. “Assume everyone will betray you, and you will never be disappointed,” he says pessimistically. His gang of outlaws includes the prickly Val (Thandie Newton) and alien Rio Durant (a comical CGI creation voiced by a very cheeky Jon Favreau). Along these travels he crosses paths and befriends Chewbacca (now played by Joonas Suotamo) and while their bromance flourishes, the duo quickly become sucked into the thug life. And once you’re in, you’re in for good.
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But when a smuggling operation goes sour, Beckett, Solo and the crew have to answer to Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), a charismatic, but merciless mob boss who doesn’t tolerate mistakes. Now bound to Vos, the crew’s life depends on the success of a dangerous new mission on the outer rim of the star system.
The MVP of ‘Solo’ beyond Howard’s crisp, engaging action sequences is cinematographer Bradford Young (“Selma,” ” Arrival,” Ain’t Them Bodies Saints“) and the beauty of the gritty tone and mood he injects into the film. Young doubles down on the raw and grimy “Rogue One” aesthetic, but makes it his own, creating a cold, desaturated look of amber browns, golden hues and icy greys (that arguably it may be just too underlit and dreary for some). The movie’s production values are aces as well, and ‘Solo’ looks like mint. Practical, lived-in sets, textured puppet creatures and more give the film a grubby authenticity straight out of ‘A New Hope‘s’ Mos Eisley den of scum and villainy.
But the film otherwise doesn’t possess many extraordinary elements. The cast of ‘Solo’ is respectable, Ehrenreich with some magnetism, but it would be a stretch to say anyone’s remarkable. Donald Glover does a fun Billy Dee Williams impression as Lando Calrissian, but the character is thinly written and doesn’t steal the show as one might hope. His subplot storyline involving the cantankerous, L3-37 droid (Phoebe Waller-Bridge)— while thematically sound in its ideas of autonomy, liberation, and subjugation— feels out of character for Lando. Paul Bettany oozes a mix of charm and menace as the rather enjoyable villain Dryden Vos, but he, nor any of the characters have a lot of contours.
Ultimately, however, it’s a back to basics adventure and one with a fairly lousy script filled with tin-eared and hamfisted dialogue that continually breaks the cardinal rules of show don’t tell. And ‘Solo’s familiar customs are even more curious when considering the previous ‘Star Wars’ film, ‘The Last Jedi’ which pushed the boundaries of the franchise so daringly, some hardcore fans were left deeply alienated (it made billions of dollars so clearly many loved it too). Yet, while Lucasfilm and President Kathleen Kennedy embraced director Rian Johnson’s aspirations to deconstruct and tear down the past of ‘Star Wars’ tradition, they rejected the wild, envelope-pushing comedy and improvisation techniques of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the original filmmakers behind ‘Solo,’ fired at the 11th hour due to their desire to test the limits of what constitutes comedy within a ‘Star Wars’ film.
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Enter veteran filmmaker Ron Howard, the journeyman hired to fix ‘Solo’ reportedly reshooting 70% of the original production. A steady and reliable hand, Howard certainly crafts a competent, entertaining picture—one of his best in recent years— but it’s an undeniable anodyne one that doesn’t rock the boat or move ‘Solo’ or “Star Wars” out of its comfort zone (nor glean any insights into any of the characters). And try as it might, it never quite possesses the spark that makes so many “Star Wars” films near and dear to fans.
An origin story to a tee, another big issue: ‘Solo’ is one of those prequels that takes away the mystery of its titular character and banally delves into every legend imaginable. Do you want to see how Solo made that famous Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs, how he got his blaster, how he met Chewbacca, how he got his name, how he won the Millennium Falcon, how he became a smuggler, and pretty much every beat of his life mentioned or hinted at in the original “Star Wars” trilogy? If so, this film is for you. But if the idea of all of these moments weaved into the Han Solo origin story makes you wince, Howard’s movie will give you many groanworthy disagreeable moments that you wish they would have left up to your imagination. ‘Solo’ does not follow the adage of less history, more mystery.
Fanservice is high too. Easter egg reference to bounty hunters, mob bosses, planets you know, “Star Wars Rebels,” “Rogue One” and more are littered all over the place and it’s all a bit much. It deserves its own tangential story really (and we’ll get into that in a later piece), but one major cameo in the film is utterly perplexing and may either frustrate or anger “Star Wars” fans who aren’t familiar with the comics, the animated cartoons and some, deeper “Star Wars” canon. Results may vary, but it clouds the end of the film too. One could go on, but if there’s no payoff here in later movies, fans are going to be left scratching their heads.
There’s a curious identity crisis going on over at Lucasfilm, or at least a conflicting push and pull. The “Star Wars” movie universe (and not just the comics and animated shows) need to evolve and expand, but it seems like the company is torn between growth (‘The Last Jedi’) and familiarity. And for every step forward, there’s arguably one step back. “Solo: A Star Wars Story” may fit like a well-worn glove, but it’s maybe time to move on. The spirit and essence of “Star Wars” is an alchemy of ingredients we now all know well; wonder, humor, heart, action, and adventure. Ron Howard arguably captures it in his flawed, but still fairly enjoyable ‘Solo’ movie, but the burden of keeping fans happy means if you’re looking for surprises, you should probably make that hyperspace jump to a different destination. [C+/B-]