Solo has the scruffy confidence to be its own film. Of the ten Star Wars movies released so far, it’s the only one that doesn’t directly tie into the events of the main saga. That alone makes it interesting and laudable as the first real silver screen step of Star Wars ceasing to be a series and starting to be a “cinematic universe.”
Which isn’t to say that Solo is disconnected from its predecessors. The film reveals how Han and Chewbacca first became a duo. It features the first meeting of the title character and Lando Calrissian. It even shows how Han ended up with the Millennium Falcon. And that’s setting aside references to a “gangster on Tatooine,” hints of a growing rebellion, and familiar characters popping up in unexpected places. Make no mistake — Solo is undoubtedly interested in reminding its viewers where all these characters will end up in ten years’ time.
But it’s also good enough not to be about that. Solo is part-heist flick and part coming-of-age tale. It’s more interested in Han’s big adventure in this film and how he comes to be the sarcastic smuggler we meet in A New Hope than it is in how he fits into the broader Star Wars Universe, and that’s to the movie’s benefit.
The promise of these “Star Wars Stories” is that they can use the diverse, elaborate world that George Lucas and his collaborators crafted as a sandbox to spin all kinds of entertaining yarns, while not tethered to the concerns and machinations of the Skywalker family. Solo still anchors its story on familiar faces, but tells its own tale, and comes out the better for it.
Please, nobody tell Anakin that I mentioned sand.
The big problem with Solo, then, is that it has two modes: (a.) irreverent action/adventure flick filled with colorful characters and (b.) semi-serious interrogation of Who And What Han Solo Is™, and it’s much more entertaining and effective at the former than the latter.
The script, penned by Empire Strikes Back scribe Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jonathan, does a superb job at introducing the central figures, both new and old, and letting them bounce off one another in the confines of a rickety old ship and a mission that takes them to various rough-and-tumble locales. But Solo often falters when trying to use that setup to explore its title character’s true nature.
The film’s thesis on that front is a solid one — that Han is unavoidably rough around the edges and wants to be “bad,” but that deep down he’s good. That is, after all, his essential arc in the Original Trilogy, where a seemingly good-for-nothing smuggler is revealed to have a heart of gold and harbors sympathies for the cause of the Rebellion, or at least his friends.
Solo retraces that arc a bit, and weakens Han’s progression in the original films a little because of that. But the Kasdans get Han: the talk that’s bigger than his pay dirt, the cocksure improvisational confidence, and the innate goodness that peaks through his rough-hewn if charming exterior. The film just does a much better job of showing us those qualities through Han’s actions and his attitude than in having various other characters ham-fistedly comment on them and wax rhapsodic about who he’s been in the past and who he might become in the future.
"Now it's important to remember, Han, that as the protagonist in an origin film, people will try to give you life lessons and meaningful warnings at every opportunity."
The best parts of that effort work largely thanks to Alden Ehrenreich, who takes over the role originated by Harrison Ford in 1977’s A New Hope. Following in those iconic footsteps is a tall order, but Ehrenreich makes it work. He doesn’t stoop to doing an impression of Ford (short of a few conspicuous mannerisms), but still manages to capture the character’s rakish charm and overconfident, anything goes spirit. Yes, it’s a little hard to grok that this kid becomes 1970s-era Harrison Ford in ten years, but Ehrenreich absolutely works as Young Han, and the movie built around him wouldn’t work without that.
The other characters that populate the film are a bit more hit or miss, but still prove largely fun and entertaining. Woody Harrelson’s turn as reluctant mentor Tobias Beckett sees him filling the same, weathered good ol’ boy niche he’s long since scratched out for himself. Emilia Clarke does fine as Qi’Ra, a femme fatale who manages to be a little bit more than just Han’s love interest, but only a little. Donald Glover’s charisma carries the day as he inhabits Young Lando Calrissian, but occasionally his performance comes across like Glover doing his best impersonation of Billy Dee Williams in Empire rather than inhabiting a fully-formed character (though his chemistry with Ehrenreich mostly spackles over that).
And there’s plenty of other enjoyable, if seemingly disposable side characters, like Paul Bettany’s genteel but menacing villain, Dryden Vos, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a delightfully irrepressible droid revolutionary named L3-37. Even relative newcomer Joonas Suotamo brings a dose of character beyond the fur to Chewbacca, alongside Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt’s traditional Wookiee groans and growls.
When Solo deploys these characters well, it’s one hell of an amusing, action-filled romp. Seeing Han’s Oliver Twist-esque origins blossom into his up-and-down efforts to live on the fringes of both the law and the galaxy are thrilling and fun. The film transports the viewer to new, scrappier corners of the galaxy, packing the frame with wild new creatures and settings that help make Star Wars feel big and diverse once more.
"L3-37 is a free elf!"
And the bones of the film are solid. Han’s goals and wants are clear; his compatriots are well-if-quickly sketched, and the set pieces are nicely chaotic and spontaneous, as befits the way any plan involving Han Solo should shake out. The pacing is off here and there, and certain action sequences extend to the point of exhaustion (likely a casualty of the handoff between the 86’d boundary-pushing team of Phil Lord & Christopher Miller and steady hand Ron Howard). But the core mode of the film — where a band of well-traveled and wannabe outlaws does a job with various pitfalls and smart remarks — works like gangbusters.
Then, the final act hits, and the film stops being fun and starts being serious. There’s double-crosses on double-crosses, heavily sign-posted character-defining choices, and cliché, ponderous statements about who Han is supposed to be or shouldn’t be or might have been that one time we’re not really sure.
Solo, like its protagonist, has its heart in the right place in this regard. It’s laudable to try to turn this adventure into something revealing about one of the franchise’s biggest characters and not just an empty-calorie escapade. But the film can’t support the weight of that introspection (not to mention all of its clunky extrospection) and becomes bogged down when trying to unravel both its less-compelling plot threads and its character study in one big, convoluted finale.
But one thing is for sure. This movie is not about the Skywalkers. And despite an eyebrow-raising tease, it is not about the broader Star Wars Universe. It’s about Han Solo, and is, for the first time, a genuinely independent Star Wars story. For most of its run time, Solo is a standalone (if franchise-winking) adventure from the days when Han was still cutting his teeth as a smuggler and an outlaw. The film has its problems when it departs from that mode, but still shows the benefits, and the fun, of Star Wars movies that follow the lead of Solo himself, and aim to go it alone.
