Solo: A Star Wars Story

◊ ◊ ½

There will come a day, in the perhaps not too distant future, when the interconnected, tie-in movie fever dream we are currently in will break. But, with the MCU running rough-shod over everything else in Hollywood, that day is not today. So, Lucasfilm plows forward with its goal of milking all it can from every corner of the Star Wars universe. “Rogue One” did well in theaters, and was widely praised, so why not? However, “Solo” is not quite as successful. I think “Rogue One” worked in part because it was a self-contained story. It held up on it’s own and drew from the Star Wars universe to add depth, without needing to rely on it. “Solo” could not stand on its own and does not even try to. It felt as though the writers made a check list of everything we know about Han Solo and just stitched the origins of all those things into a script and then filled in what was left. Occasionally, it worked well, as when the film doubled down on the infamous “Kessel run in 12 parsecs” mistake Lucas made in the original film. That was very clever. However, most of the time, these plot devices felt like add-ons. Alden Ehrenreich (the best thing in “Hail, Caesar”) makes for a passable Solo. He manages to muster the swagger of Harrison Ford’s Solo, but lacks the cool detachment. Ehrenreich’s is a more anxious, giddy performance. Perhaps, you could argue that is the way a young Solo would be. I can buy that, but I found it distracting and kept imagining what Ford’s performance would have been like. I was also disappointed that some of the best characters (like “Rio” and “Enfys”) had limited screen time, whereas the insufferable L3-37 was all over the screen. She was a clear attempt to replicate the success of K2SO from “Rogue One.” K2 had himself been an attempt to capture the magic of C3PO as the comic relief robot. K2 had worked. L3 does not, primarily because the writers were just trying too hard. I can imagine them all sitting around wondering, “how do we have another funny robot, but who doesn’t seem like a copy of other funny robots we have used?” This one came across as bullying, whiny, and mocking of today’s political climate (though I doubt that was the intention). Trying to make jokes out of anyone’s attempt to rise above oppression seems ill-advised to me. However, Donald Glover’s (“Community,” “Atlanta”) Lando Calrissian was pure fun. Glover, who is red-hot right now, was clearly having a grand time playing the character as a self-serving playboy. His performance added depth and context to Billy Dee Williams’s Lando. This was, at times, a fun film with some beautiful special effects. It was also glitzy, fast-paced, and a bit cold. As I said earlier, the story seemed to be written to fill in the cracks between the wash list of Han Solo trivia. The end result was entertaining but not great. Given that they clearly want to make more “Solo” films, I hope they try harder the next time. Oh, and am I the only one who thought all the other wookies looked more like they belonged in “2001: A Space Odyssey?” What was up with that?