Solo: A Star Wars Story

When Ron Howard was hired to replace Phil Lord and Christo­pher Miller (who ulti­mate­ly had to set­tle for an exec­u­tive pro­duc­er cred­it), the chief con­cern among fans was that Dis­ney and Lucas­film were play­ing it safe. Howard cer­tain­ly looked like an unin­spired choice, but frankly there isn’t a direc­tor in the galaxy who could have sal­vaged a decent Star Wars movie from Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan’s turgid screenplay.

This is an excit­ing and pre­sum­ably nervy time for the gate­keep­ers of the sec­ond high­est gross­ing cin­e­mat­ic fran­chise of all time – espe­cial­ly giv­en the emphat­ic man­ner in which Rian John­son drew a line under the Sky­walk­er saga in 2017’s The Last Jedi. Yet the win­dow of nar­ra­tive pos­si­bil­i­ties opened by that bold and divi­sive film is firm­ly slammed shut here, result­ing in a bland block­buster that lacks the depth and tex­ture of its imme­di­ate pre­de­ces­sors, and, of course, George Lucas’ orig­i­nal trilogy.

Attempts are made to place this Stars Wars sto­ry with­in the con­text of the series’ time­line, but unlike Gareth Edwards’ vast­ly supe­ri­or Rogue One, Solo isn’t inter­est­ed in build­ing its own lega­cy or say­ing some­thing – any­thing – new or inter­est­ing about its cho­sen sub­ject. Where it ought to feel expan­sive and fresh, this ori­gin sto­ry feels closed-off and air­less. The script ref­er­ences all the clas­sic Han moments from Episodes IV-VI with­out deliv­er­ing any of its own. It’s a film that prizes fan ser­vice above orig­i­nal sto­ry­telling, using icon­ic lines and casu­al asides as the scaf­fold­ing for its reverse-engi­neered plot.

We learn, for exam­ple, how Han, in an amus­ing­ly mun­dane case of reverse nom­i­na­tive deter­min­ism, acquired the name Solo, and how he and Chewie became pals. We learn that Leia was not Han’s first love, but that anoth­er woman, Qi’ra (Emil­ia Clarke), from his home plan­et Corel­lia, was the object of his desire a long time before. And, inevitably, we see Han com­plete the Kessel Run in less than 12 par­secs in his ship the Mil­len­ni­um Fal­con. Unpack­ing a character’s back­sto­ry in such a lit­er­al way is lazy – but by shad­ing in detail pre­vi­ous­ly visu­alised only in the minds of view­ers, you also strip away some of the romance and wonder.

On a more pos­i­tive note, Alden Ehren­re­ich does a fine job in the title role, inject­ing plen­ty of per­son­al­i­ty into the part while avoid­ing the temp­ta­tion to do a Har­ri­son Ford imper­son­ation. Woody Har­rel­son is good val­ue too as Tobias Beck­ett, a jad­ed gun run­ner who reluc­tant­ly takes Han under his wing. Phoebe Waller-Bridge less so as L3-37, a fem­i­nist droid who’s eas­i­ly the most annoy­ing Star Wars side­kick since Jar Jar Binks. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the biggest dis­ap­point­ment of all is Don­ald Glover’s Lan­do Cal­riss­ian, whose defin­ing char­ac­ter trait is his exten­sive col­lec­tion of silk capes. Where Bil­ly Dee Williams bought the enig­mat­ic smug­gler to life with lit­tle more than his easy charis­ma, Glover’s man­nered per­for­mance doesn’t raise our hopes for the long-moot­ed Lan­do spin-off movie.

In a film that’s osten­si­bly about find­ing your tribe, it’s telling how few of the cast gel, but again this is more down to the stilt­ed, expo­si­tion-heavy script than any­thing else. Mean­while the set pieces are fast-paced but, bar a roller­coast­er chase sequence on a sidewind­ing freight train, large­ly func­tion­al, pro­pelling our hero from point to point on a jour­ney in which very lit­tle is revealed about the world he was born into, or the wider con­flict sup­pos­ed­ly unfold­ing around him.