Did we need a standalone Han Solo movie in the Star
Wars universe? No, no we didn’t. But no one asked me, and in the
grand scheme of things, unnecessary as it is, we could have done much worse
than Solo: A Star Wars Story. Granted, we also could have done
much better. It’s a wildly mixed bag, but with the utter chaos behind the
scenes—the ousting of directors Chris Lord and Phil Miller 2/3 of the way
through production, the recasting, the rewrites, the reshoots—worse was always
on the table as a very real possibility.
Overlong and overstuffed—we apparently need forced origin
stories for every facet of Han’s character, from the
groan-inducing way he got his name to how he stumbled upon some of his favorite
catch phrases—there are things that will make Star Wars fans
cringe and smile equal measure. Various chase scenes and heists carry the
franchise’s swashbuckling high adventure mantle. And at the minimum, most of Solo
is reasonably fun. At least until the final act, when it turns into a messy
jumble of questionable narrative choices and dubious motives.
Alden Ehrenreich takes over the Han Solo role and the film
traces his origins as a Dickensian street urchin on his home planet Corellia.
He’s in love with a girl, Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), but fate tears them apart and
he sets out upon a great adventure and falls in with an outlaw crew made up of his
new criminal mentor Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), Val (Thandie Newton), and Rio (voiced by
Jon Favreau). Thus begins his real education, which throws him into the orbit
of vicious gangsters like Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), his new walking carpet BFF
Chewbacca, and fellow scoundrels like Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover filling
Billy Dee Williams’ shoes).
As Han, Ehrenreich is…fine. I was admittedly skeptical
because in all the trailers, he looks like sucking charisma void. But he’s
better than I feared; he’s fine. He has some charm and almost-spark, sells the
melodramatic romance angle well enough, and is full of half-cocked, improvised
schemes that never quite work as planned.
Ehrenreich is fine. And while that’s all well and good, when
we’re talk about a character as iconic as Han Solo, one of the most beloved
cinematic figures of all time, fine doesn’t cut it. Especially when Harrison
Ford played Han in 2015 in The Force Awakens. That memory is
all too fresh and Solo never fully escapes that looming
shadow. Maybe this won’t be an issue for some people, perhaps younger viewers
without the same connection to Han, but Ehrenreich never makes the role his own.
Watching him, all I ever thought was that this kid is just doing a swaggerless Han
Solo impression.
It doesn’t help matters that Solo tries
to have it both ways with the title character. The story sets him down the path
to being the untrusting, cynical rogue we first meet in A New
Hope. That’s great, but at the same time, it repeatedly hammers the
fact that, for all his posturing, he’s the good guy. Part of what makes Han so
great is that we get to watch him transform from a self-interested criminal out
for number one into a legitimate hero. It’s a difficult transition for him, and
more than any other character in the saga, he has the most clearly defined arc.
Solo tries to make him the guy who shoots first and
the guy who ultimately does the right thing. The two sides can’t necessarily
coexist, especially not with what we’re given here. If he was always going to
do the right thing, his evolution in the original trilogy becomes an
inevitability and loses its impact. And he’s going to be a shitty criminal to
boot.
Ehrenreich does what he can, but he’s wooden and has one
shtick—we get it, he wants to be an outlaw but has a warm, gooey center. After
a while, it turns into a drudge. Fortunately for everyone, Lando shows up and
injects some much-needed life into the proceedings. Billy Dee Williams is
great, but Donald Glover takes over the role—while I kept thinking of Harrison
Ford watching Ehrenreich, I never once had that thought watching Glover. He
oozes charm and smooth cool—seriously, he has an entire cape closet and I’m pretty
sure at one point he wears a cape over another cape and pulls it off. This is
also by far the most time we spend with Lando, and we see a wider range than
ever, including a strong connection with his radical droid sidekick, L3-37
(voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge). They get the most emotional moment of the entire
film.
The weight the supporting players carry varies from case to
case. Along with Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke sells the sappy love story well enough.
It’s not particularly interesting, but it does what’s needed for the most part.
Chewy is Chewy, though it’s nice to see him get more to do than in the last two
Episode movies. Thandie Newton’s Val is more or less a wash,
which is a shame because she could have been something special in the
Star Wars canon. Dryden Vos begins as a scary-as-hell
gangster, though when he shows up again later, that’s not the case—that’s not
Paul Bettany’s fault, blame for that lies fully on the script. Of the secondary
characters, Woody Harrelson’s Beckett offers the most intrigue. He essentially becomes
a proto-mentor to the young Han and this is where he picks up many of his
trademark tics and foibles.
Over the first two-thirds of the characters fulfill their
roles as they would. Their choices are justified and make sense, and there’s a
consistency to their actions. But that changes as the plot nears the climax.
Characters act against type. And not in a complex or earned way like the script
intends, but in a cheap, hammy, convenient way. It tries to create this web of
shifting allegiances, betrayals, and moral ambiguity, but instead of working to
develop those possibilities, it just slaps them on like bumper stickers. They’re
twists for the sake of having twists and the result is, instead of shock or
surprise, a hollow ringing emptiness.
The timeline is a bit dubious. Like I said, they try to cram
in a lot—if it’s an iconic piece of Han lore, Solo attempts
to visualize it, like every momentous event in his life happened in one
compressed era. That said, replacement director Ron Howard and writers Lawrence
and Jonathan Kasdan paint a different picture of that far, far away galaxy. Set
between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Rebels, the Empire is present, but it hasn’t fully tightened its grip
yet. This is a more of a creeping tide of fascism than a full-blown
authoritarian regime; it’s a time of syndicates and cartels operating in the cracks,
very much intended to be like the wild west. There are small outfits, like
Beckett’s; rival crews, like the one led by masked marauder Enfys Nest; and
major crime networks, like the Crimson Dawn, Dryden Vos’ operation. It’s nice
to get away from the Jedi and the Skywalkers and see how the rest of the galaxy
lives, which is what these Star Wars Story films were
originally intended to do.
In Howard’s hands, the action is slick and solid. An early
chase scene through the streets of Corellia stands out, as does a
western-inspired train heist. Cinematographer Bradford Young
(Arrival, Selma) paints lovely pictures
of the exotic planets, from snow-capped mountains to sweeping desert vistas to dingy
urban settings. As one might expect from a Star Wars movie,
the creature design is on point—one in particular has distinct shades of
Dark Crystal, while there are Lovecraftian flourishes found
as well.
Overall, Solo: A Star Wars Story is an up
and down ride, and I mean that in both good and bad ways. There’s soaring space
adventure and bland tedium; we see fantastic renditions of beloved characters juxtaposed
against ho-hum portrayals of others. It works best when it settles the cocky, cavalier
action and cheesy romance, but tries to do too much and is in desperate need of
a trim. It’s fine, but when talking about Han Solo, is fine good enough? [Grade:
C+]
No comments:
Post a Comment