[6.1/10] When I wrote my initial review of Solo: A Star Wars Story after seeing it in theaters, I said the film was very enjoyable when it was a standalone, character-filled romp, and dull when it tried to be a grand statement about Who Han Solo Is:tm:.
I stand by that assessment. There’s moments where Solo is irreverent and fun, and manages the “madcap scoundrels bluffing their way through a heist” routine with charm and aplomb. But on rewatch, the balance between that and the painful rumination about who Han’s going to be in ten years time is way off.
That’s the weird thing about this movie -- its title character doesn't really have an arc. I guess Han goes from being a wannabe outlaw to a...somewhat more competent outlaw? I suppose he’s learned that he can’t trust people, even mentors and friends...except for the fact that he still trusts Chewie, and Enfys Nest, and others. I guess he’s supposed to learn to be underhanded and resourceful, but he’s trying to pull cons and trick people from literally the moment we meet him. The Han we see at the beginning of Solo isn’t meaningfully different from the one we meet in the middle of A New Hope.
That wouldn’t be a problem if this were just another adventure. There’s plenty of things Han could learn, about himself or others or about the galaxy that don’t have to do with whether or not he’s a roguish smuggler. If Solo had just been about Han, Chewie, Lando, and some new faces going on a caper, it could totally work (and it kind of did). Instead, so much of the film’s oxygen is taken up by having to make some grand declaration of what kind of person Han is, without really developing him at all.
What’s worse than that lack of development is that the movie is just so damn self-serious about it all. My natural inclination is to blame that on showing comic sprites like Lord & Miller the door and bringing in the competent but pedestrian Ron Howard to land the ship. But whether it’s Howard’s fault, or the script’s fault, or a lot of people’s fault, this movie is way too severe for such an irreverent character, and it makes the jokey interludes, pleasant though they may be, feel tonally out of place.
But the element of the film most out of place is Tobias Beckett. It struck me on rewatch that he is completely extraneous as a character, and the film would be better off without him. The idea is that he’s there for Han to model himself after in some way, so that Han can be a new version of the same guy with a heart of gold. But (a.) it’s pretty boring to have one of the most distinctive and original characters from the first Star Wars movie retconned into being a vague approximation of another character and (b.) Beckett doesn't really do much beyond spout dull, unnecessarily portentous life lessons. There’s nothing he brings to the table that couldn’t be fulfilled by Qi’ra or just figured out through Han’s own experiences and choices rather than have his hand held by Woody Harrelson’s increasingly tired good ol’ boy shtick.
What’s crazy, and what holds an otherwise rickety film together, is how well so many of the characters work. On rewatch, I still appreciate the job Alden Ehrenreich did, capturing Ford’s take on the character in spirit without resorting to an imitation. Donald Glover’s Lando still veers more toward the former, but his natural charisma carries the day. Regardless of the controversy, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s L3-37 is a delight. And despite basically only having two scenes that were, if my understanding is correct, reshot for the film, Paul Bettany makes one hell of an impression as a “look what you made me do” crime boss.
That’s the hardest part! It’s the thing that all but doomed the Star Wars prequels. And yet, despite managing to not only conjure some likable and intriguing characters, but managing to recast some beloved actors and make it work, Solo suffers from a similar sort of overexplain-y prequelitis. It strains credulity that everything noteworthy about Han basically happened in, what, a day? Maybe a week?
He meets Chewie. He meets Lando. He does the Kessel Run. He flies the Millennium Falcon for the first time. He wins the Millennium Falcon from Lando in a card game. He shoots first. He makes plans to do a job for a “big gangster on Tatooine.” He...gets his blaster? It’s not quite to the level of “Anakin built C-3P0 and the Clone Wars were basically fought by an army of Boba Fetts” but holy cow is it corny and contrived that every significant development in Han’s life that’s relevant to the Original Trilogy happened during the short timeframe of this film.
(And don’t get me started on those damn dice. I barely even remembered them from A New Hope, and now they’re some uber-important symbol for Han? What a weird, lionization of a random prop.)
Apart from those broader issues, some of the nuts and bolts problems in the film stand out more on a second look. For one thing, Solo looks much uglier than I remembered. I enjoy the grimy muck of the galaxy’s underbelly, and maybe something’s just lost in the translation to the small screen, but at times, between the color pallette and the lighting, the film is just downright unpleasant to look at. And the direction is just as uninspired, with so many of the action sequences going overlong and turning into one big mush of different, not particularly exciting shots that can’t hold your attention.
The film’s also considerably more boring the second time around. Maybe on a first watch, when you don't know for sure where the movie is going, there’s more excitement and anticipation for what might be happening next. But when you know the plot, the pacing seems way off, the acts feel lopsided, and more and more parts of the film feel like extraneous material that doesn't tell the audience anything or move Solo closer to its intended point, but rather just marks time with more hard-to-follow CGI hash.
Even focusing on that is to set all the minor points in this one that are downright odd. The Enfys Nest reveal is confusing at best, where the fact that the antagonist is a fresh-faced young woman is supposed to be a shock in a franchise where Yoda taught us not to judge potential allies and enemies based on appearance. I still like L3, but drawing attention to Star Wars “Are droids slaves?” problem feels like a bad idea for escapist fantasy whose world was never built or intended to be able to withstand such scrutiny. And Val and Rio, Becket’s original running buddies, are all but devoid of personality despite great performers in tow, and go from introduction to untimely death too quickly for the audience to give a damn. Their existence also immediately undermines Becket’s “don’t trust anybody” message that...Han seems to eventually disregard anyway?
That’s the weird thing about Solo: A Star Wars Story. In a movie so devoted to trying to explain the mindset and trajectory and psychology of a major franchise character, he doesn't really learn or grow very much. And the need to fit every action and detail of this adventure into something we know about Han from later in the timeline hamstrings every choice Howard and the Kasdans and the whole creative team makes.
Honestly, Lucasfilm would have been better off making a Dash Rendar movie, something that replicates the rakish rhythms of Han Solo’s outskirts-of-the-galaxy existence without all the baggage that comes from three of cinema’s most iconic films and one of the modern era’s highest grossing movies ever. There’s a good movie lurking somewhere within Solo, about enjoyable, rough-around-the-edges characters getting out of a tight spot with humor and guile. But it’s too deeply wrapped in self-serious armchair psychology and Original Trilogy leftovers to vindicate that.
The second time around, this “Star Wars Story” goes from being a fun romp dragged down by some unduly overdramatic navel-gazing, to a heap of unnecessary and unsuccessful attempts to explain a character the audience already knows, occasionally livened by a glimpse of the lighter, nimbler, more irreverent film that could have been.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-11-17T04:29:36Z
[6.1/10] When I wrote my initial review of Solo: A Star Wars Story after seeing it in theaters, I said the film was very enjoyable when it was a standalone, character-filled romp, and dull when it tried to be a grand statement about Who Han Solo Is:tm:.
I stand by that assessment. There’s moments where Solo is irreverent and fun, and manages the “madcap scoundrels bluffing their way through a heist” routine with charm and aplomb. But on rewatch, the balance between that and the painful rumination about who Han’s going to be in ten years time is way off.
That’s the weird thing about this movie -- its title character doesn't really have an arc. I guess Han goes from being a wannabe outlaw to a...somewhat more competent outlaw? I suppose he’s learned that he can’t trust people, even mentors and friends...except for the fact that he still trusts Chewie, and Enfys Nest, and others. I guess he’s supposed to learn to be underhanded and resourceful, but he’s trying to pull cons and trick people from literally the moment we meet him. The Han we see at the beginning of Solo isn’t meaningfully different from the one we meet in the middle of A New Hope.
That wouldn’t be a problem if this were just another adventure. There’s plenty of things Han could learn, about himself or others or about the galaxy that don’t have to do with whether or not he’s a roguish smuggler. If Solo had just been about Han, Chewie, Lando, and some new faces going on a caper, it could totally work (and it kind of did). Instead, so much of the film’s oxygen is taken up by having to make some grand declaration of what kind of person Han is, without really developing him at all.
What’s worse than that lack of development is that the movie is just so damn self-serious about it all. My natural inclination is to blame that on showing comic sprites like Lord & Miller the door and bringing in the competent but pedestrian Ron Howard to land the ship. But whether it’s Howard’s fault, or the script’s fault, or a lot of people’s fault, this movie is way too severe for such an irreverent character, and it makes the jokey interludes, pleasant though they may be, feel tonally out of place.
But the element of the film most out of place is Tobias Beckett. It struck me on rewatch that he is completely extraneous as a character, and the film would be better off without him. The idea is that he’s there for Han to model himself after in some way, so that Han can be a new version of the same guy with a heart of gold. But (a.) it’s pretty boring to have one of the most distinctive and original characters from the first Star Wars movie retconned into being a vague approximation of another character and (b.) Beckett doesn't really do much beyond spout dull, unnecessarily portentous life lessons. There’s nothing he brings to the table that couldn’t be fulfilled by Qi’ra or just figured out through Han’s own experiences and choices rather than have his hand held by Woody Harrelson’s increasingly tired good ol’ boy shtick.
What’s crazy, and what holds an otherwise rickety film together, is how well so many of the characters work. On rewatch, I still appreciate the job Alden Ehrenreich did, capturing Ford’s take on the character in spirit without resorting to an imitation. Donald Glover’s Lando still veers more toward the former, but his natural charisma carries the day. Regardless of the controversy, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s L3-37 is a delight. And despite basically only having two scenes that were, if my understanding is correct, reshot for the film, Paul Bettany makes one hell of an impression as a “look what you made me do” crime boss.
That’s the hardest part! It’s the thing that all but doomed the Star Wars prequels. And yet, despite managing to not only conjure some likable and intriguing characters, but managing to recast some beloved actors and make it work, Solo suffers from a similar sort of overexplain-y prequelitis. It strains credulity that everything noteworthy about Han basically happened in, what, a day? Maybe a week?
He meets Chewie. He meets Lando. He does the Kessel Run. He flies the Millennium Falcon for the first time. He wins the Millennium Falcon from Lando in a card game. He shoots first. He makes plans to do a job for a “big gangster on Tatooine.” He...gets his blaster? It’s not quite to the level of “Anakin built C-3P0 and the Clone Wars were basically fought by an army of Boba Fetts” but holy cow is it corny and contrived that every significant development in Han’s life that’s relevant to the Original Trilogy happened during the short timeframe of this film.
(And don’t get me started on those damn dice. I barely even remembered them from A New Hope, and now they’re some uber-important symbol for Han? What a weird, lionization of a random prop.)
Apart from those broader issues, some of the nuts and bolts problems in the film stand out more on a second look. For one thing, Solo looks much uglier than I remembered. I enjoy the grimy muck of the galaxy’s underbelly, and maybe something’s just lost in the translation to the small screen, but at times, between the color pallette and the lighting, the film is just downright unpleasant to look at. And the direction is just as uninspired, with so many of the action sequences going overlong and turning into one big mush of different, not particularly exciting shots that can’t hold your attention.
The film’s also considerably more boring the second time around. Maybe on a first watch, when you don't know for sure where the movie is going, there’s more excitement and anticipation for what might be happening next. But when you know the plot, the pacing seems way off, the acts feel lopsided, and more and more parts of the film feel like extraneous material that doesn't tell the audience anything or move Solo closer to its intended point, but rather just marks time with more hard-to-follow CGI hash.
Even focusing on that is to set all the minor points in this one that are downright odd. The Enfys Nest reveal is confusing at best, where the fact that the antagonist is a fresh-faced young woman is supposed to be a shock in a franchise where Yoda taught us not to judge potential allies and enemies based on appearance. I still like L3, but drawing attention to Star Wars “Are droids slaves?” problem feels like a bad idea for escapist fantasy whose world was never built or intended to be able to withstand such scrutiny. And Val and Rio, Becket’s original running buddies, are all but devoid of personality despite great performers in tow, and go from introduction to untimely death too quickly for the audience to give a damn. Their existence also immediately undermines Becket’s “don’t trust anybody” message that...Han seems to eventually disregard anyway?
That’s the weird thing about Solo: A Star Wars Story. In a movie so devoted to trying to explain the mindset and trajectory and psychology of a major franchise character, he doesn't really learn or grow very much. And the need to fit every action and detail of this adventure into something we know about Han from later in the timeline hamstrings every choice Howard and the Kasdans and the whole creative team makes.
Honestly, Lucasfilm would have been better off making a Dash Rendar movie, something that replicates the rakish rhythms of Han Solo’s outskirts-of-the-galaxy existence without all the baggage that comes from three of cinema’s most iconic films and one of the modern era’s highest grossing movies ever. There’s a good movie lurking somewhere within Solo, about enjoyable, rough-around-the-edges characters getting out of a tight spot with humor and guile. But it’s too deeply wrapped in self-serious armchair psychology and Original Trilogy leftovers to vindicate that.
The second time around, this “Star Wars Story” goes from being a fun romp dragged down by some unduly overdramatic navel-gazing, to a heap of unnecessary and unsuccessful attempts to explain a character the audience already knows, occasionally livened by a glimpse of the lighter, nimbler, more irreverent film that could have been.