Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

There are certain film characters who carry so much cultural weight that the idea of recasting them feels almost presumptuous. Han Solo, as first played by Harrison Ford across the original Star Wars trilogy and later the sequel films, is about as close to an untouchable screen icon as Hollywood has produced in the last half-century. So when Lucasfilm announced a standalone origin story centred on the young smuggler, the reaction was, to put it politely, mixed. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) arrived as part of the studio's ambitious programme of anthology features sitting alongside the main saga, following Rogue One (2016) down a similar path of filling in gaps the existing films had largely left to the imagination. The basic premise, covering how Solo crosses paths with his future co-pilot Chewbacca (played here by Joonas Suotamo, who had already taken over the role from Peter Mayhew in The Force Awakens) and first encounters the notorious card-sharp Lando Calrissian, had a certain logic to it on paper. Whether it needed a two-hour-plus feature to tell that story is another question entirely.

The production of Solo was, by any measure, a turbulent one. Original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were removed from the project well into principal photography, with Ron Howard stepping in to complete the film. Howard is a reliable Hollywood craftsman with a long and varied career, and fans of the site will know his work from reviews including The Da Vinci Code (2006), Angels & Demons (2009), and Inferno (2016). He is a director who can be trusted to deliver something polished and coherent, though "polished but unremarkable" has followed him around as a description more than once. Whether the circumstances of the production left a mark on the finished film is something viewers have debated ever since. The screenplay was written by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon Kasdan, which at least brought some genuine Star Wars pedigree to the table, Lawrence Kasdan having co-written The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The film was released by Lucasfilm through Walt Disney Pictures and ran into difficult waters at the box office, underperforming relative to expectations and effectively putting the anthology series on indefinite hold.

In front of the camera, the casting choices made for interesting reading. Alden Ehrenreich took on the considerable challenge of playing a young Han Solo, a role that required him to carry the film while inevitably inviting constant comparison to Ford's performance. Woody Harrelson plays Tobias Beckett, a seasoned criminal who serves as something of a mentor figure, while Emilia Clarke appears as Qi'ra, a figure from Solo's past who complicates his loyalties. Donald Glover, meanwhile, steps into the cape and high-waisted trousers of Lando Calrissian, the role originally made famous by Billy Dee Williams. It is a film that, for better or worse, lives and dies on whether those central performances land. If you are curious how Solo compares to other big-budget science fiction adventures on the site, it is worth checking out the review of Transformers (2007) for a sense of where franchise blockbusters can go right or wrong.

Han Solo impersonator A film as unnecessary as it is uninspired. Solo isn’t bad, it’s just… there. Bland, forgettable, and completely lacking the roguish charm that made Han Solo such an iconic character in the first place. Alden Ehrenreich does his best, but let’s be real, he looks nothing like Harrison Ford and barely captures the essence of the character. It’s like watching a cosplay performance with a blockbuster budget. Meanwhile, Donald Glover as Lando? Perfect. He’s effortlessly smooth, charismatic, and steals every scene he’s in. If this movie had just been Lando: A Star Wars Story, I’d have been far more interested. Then there’s Emilia Clarke, who I swear plays the same slightly smug, vaguely mysterious love interest in every role. Her character, Qi’ra, is meant to be compelling, but she just comes off as dull and unconvincing. Honestly, I didn’t care about her arc at all. The plot is fine, I guess. Some cool action set pieces, some decent world-building, I guess but it never truly excites. It feels more like a box-ticking exercise than a real adventure. And don’t even get me started on the "reveal" of that character at the end. Fan service at its most unnecessary. Not awful, not great. Just painfully meh.

And that, really, is what stays with me most about Solo. Glover's Lando is a genuine bright spot, the kind of performance that makes you wonder what a different film might have looked like with him at the centre. For me, when the most memorable thing about a two-hour origin story is a supporting character, something has gone wrong at a fairly fundamental level. I have sat through plenty of films that are worse than this, but there is something particularly deflating about a film that had every resource available to it and settled for competent. It is like being served a perfectly adequate meal in a restaurant that was supposed to be special. You leave full, but you are not talking about it on the way home.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2018  | Watched: 2018-12-04

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
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Physical: Amazon US

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