SPOILERS FOLLOW
Oh man, you guys, are you ready for another Matt Ferra Star Wars review?
I know it’s only been like five months since the last one, but that’s okay! Because
as everyone knows, I freaking love Star Wars!
You know, sometimes it gets really exhausting being the “I Freaking
Love Star Wars” Guy. Let’s just get this over with.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is
the second of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars anthology series, following Rogue One. Unlike Rogue One, which focused on putting new characters in a familiar-yet-unseen
situation, Solo focuses on the
backstories of already established, beloved characters. Fortunately, it doesn’t
mess this up like the prequels did.
My biggest concern going into this movie, as well as many others’, was
Alden Ehrenreich as Han. But after seeing the movie, I can confidently say that
he’s not too bad as the character. He’s not Harrison Ford by any means, but I
don’t think that’s what they were going for. Had they tried to make him Harrison
Ford, it would have been too distracting. It’s kind of like what the prequels
did with Obi-Wan Kenobi: it’s not an impersonation of the performance we had
before, but more like an earlier version of the same character before they evolved.
They get the spirit of the character of Han right, and that’s all that matters.
The rest of the cast is pretty solid too. Paul Bettany especially surprised
me as scar-faced crime lord (oh that’s a clever subtle joke) Dryden Vos. I kind
of figured with Bettany being brought in so late in production to replace a
different actor, he might have phoned it in with the rushed production. But he did
really well portraying Vos in a properly sinister light.
And of course, there’s Donald Glover as a young Lando Calrissian. As predicted,
he perfectly emulates Billy Dee Williams’ charm as the character. Nothing else needs
to be said except that he dons the cape like he was born to wear it.
The only character I really didn’t like was L3-37, the new droid. They
do a new spin on the Star Wars universe by making her a fighter for droid
rights, but they make her so aggressive and preachy about her ideals that it
kind of makes her annoying at times. I understand what they were trying to do
with the parallels with droid rights and I hope that some people could find L3
to be a positive role model for people wanting to fight oppression and
injustice, but I felt that they could have done better with representing this
cause than to make her too similar to the “social justice warriors” you see on
the Internet all the time.
Solo has a pacing problem at
times. Sometimes the movie rushes through scenes, sometimes it takes its time,
once in a while it uses a time skip. It can get a little confusing when you’re
trying to gauge by the pacing where you’re at in the runtime of the movie. It’s
a similar problem I had with The Last Jedi
and its five different climaxes.
Overall, I liked Solo better than
Rogue One. Rogue One’s characters fell flat at times, it had themes that weren’t
properly explored, and it’s overall tone was too dark and dull to be fun like
other Star Wars movies. Solo is more
fun and has more likeable characters, which is probably due to the fact that we
already know some of them from the previous movies. The new characters, like Qi’ra
and Beckett, aren’t nearly as engaging as Han, Lando, or Chewbacca, but they
serve their purpose.
I liked the fact that the movie took place in the criminal underbelly
of the galaxy, which certainly felt different than the “Jedi/Rebels vs. Evil Empire”
dynamic the other films had. Even Rogue
One, which was certainly different than other Star Wars movies, was still
about the Rebels fighting the Empire, just from a different point of view. In
this movie, the Empire isn’t even a major force, and it’s set before the
Rebellion is even official set up. I felt this was a fresh change of pace amidst
the complaints that Disney only cares about recreating A New Hope over and over again.
And it’s a minor thing, but I really appreciated all the little nods
this movie gave to the Star Wars expanded universe; from name-dropping planets
like Felucia, to showing members of the Pyke Syndicate, capped off with Darth
Maul’s entire appearance raising confusion in those who haven’t watched the
Clone Wars cartoon. It appears that Star Wars is more interested in making
their movies and TV shows feel more interconnected than Marvel is.
Solo isn’t a deep story, and
it certainly doesn’t have the same stakes as the main “saga” Star Wars movies. But
for what it is, it’s a good popcorn flick filled with mindless entertainment.
But most importantly, it didn’t suck.
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