You know how you plan an extravagant assignment but leave it all until the last minute and deliver something far from what it could have been? That’s what SOLO: A Star Wars Story (2018) is - a strikingly average, at most beautiful, mess.
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Overview
Solo attempts to explore fan favourite character, Han Solo’s early life while briefly depicting how he became known as the galaxy’s most badass smuggler along the way. Unfortunately, it ceases to develop Han’s character nor establish itself as a story. Rather, it plays itself safe and doesn’t deliver anything to viewers other than what they expect.
Henrich’s Han feels off – but not because of the acting. Han is already a well-known character with a brief backstory that viewers expect to be deepened and explored. Although Alden Henrich plays his take on flyboy Han Solo well, the character still feels off. Henrich’s acting isn’t to blame, it’s the character we expect him to portray. Harrison Ford has already trademarked himself as the Han we all know and love, and there’s no escaping that. I found myself questioning that ghost of a Han throughout. His motives are evident, just not explained. For example, a forced romance between Emilia Clarke’s Kira and Han sort of place for the sake of it. Unlike Leia and Han, it isn’t necessary nor logical for these to two to be together. Perhaps if director Ron Howard had further explored Han’s motives instead of explaining to us how he came to be, the movie would have felt less like a long-winded autobiography.
Characters
While Kira and Han’s ‘mentor’ Becket (Woody Harrelson) are well portrayed, it feels like these characters could’ve been played by any well-established actor. Kira is given an interesting backstory that the movie’s plot focuses on greatly, but it isn’t explained. Her origins are alluded to numerous times but are never clearly shown to viewers. One gem, however, is Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian. The flamboyant, sassy character is brilliantly portrayed by Glover; however, he’s not given the screen time he truly deserves to shine. Finally, we have Chewbacca who falls into this film seemingly perfectly. Han and Chewbacca’s friendship instantly clicks, and it simply makes sense. It’s one of the few things in the film’s that doesn’t need explaining or any justification. In stark a stark contrast to the fluent introduction of Chewbacca, audiences are thrown the curveball that is L3-37 and it’s far too much to handle.
L3-37 (voiced by Phoebe Waller-bridge) is a feminine droid with a forced liberal agenda that distracts watchers from the film. The issue isn’t her agenda – it’s the delivery. L3-37 demands equal rights for droid’s numerous times and is disgusted by her fellow droids following protocol. Sure, droids in other Star Wars films have either masculine or feminine personalities, but they never had strict gender identities or issues following orders from organic life. The awkward delivery of this robot’s agenda could’ve been far more effective from an organic life form, which makes sense.
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Themes, Visuals and Stylistic Features
Much like Rogue One, Solo shows us a much softer, humanitarian side of the galaxy’s wars throughout. It even depicts some trench warfare and effectively deals with the issue of slavery in a dignified, logical manner. There are strong female leads, and we’re shown how morals can impact the would-be villain’s motives and actions. In fact, there was only one clear villain throughout the film. The major conflict seems to be an internal one: the film’s overall identity.
There are some epic action scenes with plenty of explosions and ships. Action scenes and the famous Kessel Run are enough to keep viewers mildly engaged throughout. Visually, the film is fine. Although, I had an issue with some of the costume designs. I understand they’re trying to expand the universe, but the costumes looked more like something from home than something from the galaxy far, far away. Similarly, other Wookies in the film look too much like Bigfoot. There seems to be more human-like extras than aliens. Moreover, the soundtrack is a constant, awkward transition somewhere between a David Attenborough documentary and something reminiscent of Star Wars. I wasn’t even sure if the soundtrack stopped at all. It seemed to carry on over every scene and became forgettable a short while into the film, much like this movie overall.
Check out: 'Train Heist'. Sure, it sounds beautiful; however, it has that awkward transition from something you'd hear in Destiny to something echoing a Starwars soundtrack.
Verdict
Solo: A Starwars Story (2018) is an average film. It’s not terrible, nor is it good. It relies too much on what we already know instead of pushing Han Solo into new directions and is forgettable because of this. The talents of Donald Glover and Alden Ehrenreich could’ve been better served by an overall improved direction for the film. Regarding character development and the plot, it’s too much of what viewers already expect and are accustomed to. Meanwhile, it’s not Star Wars enough at times.