Summary
Hokey references and ancient narratives are no match for a good script by your side, kids.
So much Star Wars iconography has been turned into Internet memes. SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY is an experiment in what happens when you Google Translate those memes back into a film script. The second of the anthology films released under the Disney banner, this one goes back to answer questions about Han Solo that none of us have ever asked. You know, because prequels have always worked out so well for the franchise.
It is a lawless time. We know this from the opening text that is not a yellow scrawl. A young Han (Alden Ehrenreich) escapes his life on Corellia, but is forced to leave his love Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) behind. After joining the Imperial Navy as a flight cadet, he helps liberate a captured Wookie named Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) before falling into the company of smuggler Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson). Indebted to Crimson Dawn crime lord Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), Han must help pull off a job that will put him in the life of crime…forever.
SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY is a series of “and that’s the origin of that moments.” It’s as if there was a dot-point version of Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan’s script and director Ron Howard’s job was to link them together with action sequences. The film ticks off origins for Han’s blaster, his relationship with Lando (Donald Glover), the Kessel Run, and even the gap in the front of the Millennium Falcon, winking to camera the entire time. The most insidious of these lifts a moment from The Godfather Part II to explain Han’s surname for some reason.
Individual action sequences have their undeniably kick-ass moments. There’s an early hot-rod speeder chase that starts the film out on the right foot. It’s closely followed by a train chase, a terrific throwback to old-school heist sequences. Yet these merely serve to meaninglessly dispatch perfunctory characters so that the Kasdans can fast-track Han and Chewie into the Falcon.
Ehrenreich manages to embody many of Harrison Ford’s famous mannerisms. It leans dangerously close to caricature, but that might just be because he has such meagre material to work with. Glover is ridiculously cool as Lando, mostly because he has to pose in a series of capes. Revolutionary droid L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) comes the closest to having a complete character arc, although we’re left wondering if she’s anything more than parody of a left-leaning activist.
What’s ultimately disappointing about SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY is just how inconsequential it all is. The stakes are low, and we learn nothing new about a character who has been in our lives for over 40 years. A surprise cameo in the final act is more of a head-scratcher than anything, inadvertently hitching this wagon to The Phantom Menace. If they were going to reference anything, couldn’t it be the Star Wars Holiday Special?
Perhaps the one saving grace is the reliably warming presence of Chewbacca, even if it’s no longer Peter Mayhew under the furry exterior. Yet rather than play to these strengths, he is like the rest of the film: a totem that recalls the past without acknowledging his importance in pop culture history. Next time, they should let the Wookie win.
2017 | US | DIR: Ron Howard | WRITERS: Lawrence Kasdan, Jonathan Kasdan | CAST: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Joonas Suotamo, Paul Bettany | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 135 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 25 May 2018 (AUS)
