Rating 3/5
Famed director Ron Howard took over the director’s chair to bring us another adventure in the Star Wars universe. This time bringing a script, penned by Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan, to life with beloved characters and introducing some new ones.
I am sure by now most people have seen the film (or at least those who wanted to see the film), but it still might be a little tricky to write this review. And not because it’s been a couple of months since its release – and I’m just getting around to write it – but it’s a film that had its ups and downs and a little difficult to formulate a “why?” to this film.
On the forefront, it seemed a bit unnecessary. However, it was still fun to see a little younger Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) as he befriends his trusty future co-pilot, Chewbacca (Joonas Su0tamo), and we witness how the relationship develops. The film also gives a glimpse of how the “friendship” began with fellow smuggler Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover).
Aside from that, Solo: A Star Wars Story isn’t bad. It’s not great, either. It had some spirited fun and adequate performances, some humor, and a few surprising bits thrown in. It appears that most fans, or theatergoers for that matter, were not particularly interested with this outing from Disney. Considering it had a estimated $3 million budget and only received under $85 million in its opening weekend solidified the notion the film was not necessarily needed. As of July 19, the film grossed $212,174,307 in the US and $385,185,465 worldwide. That doesn’t seem like much from a film of such a honored franchise.
It appears the film was made more or less as a fan service with some of the aforementioned bits to make it just exciting enough to watch, but not enough to necessarily care about the film as a whole. I did enjoy the film, but it didn’t have enough to make me say, “Wow, I really haven’t seen that before.”
Other names like Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton and Paul Bettany lend their talents to the franchise. And even as talented as some of those names are, it didn’t really seem to add much more to the film. On the whole, the performances were not bad and they each brought something to the character, but they weren’t anything spectacular. Even Ehrenreich’s Han didn’t seem to live up to the established character played by Harrison Ford.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is a film in which someone decided to do and thought it would be a good idea, but no one stopped to think if it should be made. With the film’s highs and lows in production to its somewhat mediocre outing at the box office, this film didn’t do much for me as part of the whole space saga, but on its own it was a quiet, tolerable surprise.
A Writer's Voice 