Solo
SOLO
I’m just going to say it…they should have waited to make SOLO. If anything else, by the end of the film you’ll know how Han made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs…along with every other cliché he smirked through all past films. But see that is the problem, there is very little we don’t know about him. The character that shoed up 41 years ago in Luca’s original Star Wars was a full character; the cynical smuggler who had the fastest ship in the fleet, and his Wookie best friend and co-pilot cannot be replicated.
Now to be fair, this film was plagued with trouble from the beginning. That considered the film is luke warm. There is no depth to an iconic character that perhaps deserved better.
The movie delivers on its promise. It shows us how things happened; how Han got his last name Solo played by Alden Ehrenreich. How he met Chewbaca and a few other space pals. It shows how he got to pilot the Millenium Falcon and eventually the card game that he wins it in, and as I mentioned earlier, the Kessel run. The film delivers on what it said it would, but it doesn’t go beyond that. It’s fine, but it could have been great.
A lot of the film just hangs there. After 9 films we know the brand and how it’s supposed to feel. Where Rogue One introduced new characters and complications to draw in the audience into a story that we all knew what the outcome would be, Solo is content to coast on our affection for established characters.
The inbalance between the original directors Lord and Miller can be seen in some of the playful energy of the film, but then the other half of the film is Howard. Perhaps if Miller and Lord had completed the film it would have been a lot more fun and perhaps 20 minutes shorter and not hampered by the distracting final scene from a peripheral prequel player.
It looks like we will have these Star Wars stories for many years to come and I for one hope they get better, unfortunately with Rogue One setting the bar so high Disney has their work cut out for them. But there is a silver lining as it looks like some very beloved side characters will get their chance. With talks about James Mangold (Logan) writing and directing a new spinoff in the Star Wars universe centered on Boba Fett.
7/10
by Hiram Trillo
