Harry Situation Reviews: Solo: A Star Wars Story

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

STAR WARS

A SOLO STORY (BECAUSE I COULDN’T COME UP WITH A BETTER TITLE)

SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EPIC EIGHTH

ENTRY IN THE STAR WARS SAGA,

AND SOME FANS ARE STILL BITCHING

ABOUT IT.

MEANWHILE, THERE IS A NEW STAR WARS

FILM FOR FANS TO BITCH ABOUT...

Solo: A Star Wars Story is a new Star Wars spinoff film that tells the origins of one of the franchise’s greatest characters, Han Solo (this time played by Alden Ehrenreich). Basically, it tells how Han first met Chewbacca, how he met Lando Calrissian (played by Donald Glover), and how he required the Millennium Falcon.

I can admit that I wasn’t all that looking forward to this movie. I’m sure you’ve heard all the behind the scenes production problems. It was originally directed and written by the guys behind the Lego Movie, but they were fired. Then Ron Howard was brought in to direct. I like Ron Howard. I think he’s a good director who directed some good movies, like Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. But he also directed some stinkers like the Da Vinci Code movies, and he’s never tackled science fiction before. So, I wasn’t sure how this film was going to go down.

I know despite The Last Jedi having some notable flaws, I still greatly enjoyed the movie. And to those who disagree, you are entitled to your opinion, but since I reviewed the movie my opinion far outranks yours. So haha, losers! ;)

I know that there are some fans out there that take issue with the Sequel Trilogy. I, however, seem to be taking issue with the spinoff films because I didn’t like this movie.

But before we dive into the bad, we gotta talk about the good. Let’s start with the one thing you want to know first and it’s the actor playing Han Solo. I thought Alden Ehrenreich did fine as Han Solo. He does everything like Harrison Ford would do as a younger version of Han, and he has his moments. But what sells it really is his relationship with Chewbacca. We know that these two are going to be best friends/coworkers for life, and they really played off each other very well to a point it got some good laughs out of me.

And I gotta mention Donald Glover as a young Lando Calrissian. You cannot find a better casting choice than this. He was perfect.

Of course, this being a Star Wars movie, there was a ton of great looking special effects for both the setting and aliens. Whatever feeling you have for any of these new Star Wars films that have been released in the last 3 years, you gotta appreciate how Disney has found a good balance between practical effects and CGI to a point that it never distracts the audience.

Unfortunately, that’s where my positives end because this movie was mainly boring as watching two Jawas reenact Hamlet. The action did not engage me at all until one sequence into the third act. I think you might know which sequence I’m talking about. It’s the one shown in all the trailers. The part where the Falcon is flying in space and TIE Fighters are shooting at them and there’s a giant space monster. That part! But if that’s the only action sequence I enjoyed out of the whole movie, that’s a big problem.

And here’s another big problem in this movie. I have no fucking clue who was supposed to be the main villain in this movie. Each Star Wars movie has a main antagonist. For the Original Trilogy it’s Darth Vader. For the Sequel Trilogy it’s Kylo Ren. Even in Rogue One the main bad guy (even though I ripped on him before in my Rogue One review) it was Director Krennic. I can’t tell you exactly who the main villain is because we’re not given one. Paul Bettany is in this movie and he plays this gangster that threatens Han and the gang. So I guess he’s the main bad guy, right? He would if he didn’t have 5 minutes of screen time, and it doesn’t help the fact that I pretty much forgot about him up until the end.

If you thought I didn’t care about the characters in Rogue One, I didn’t give 5 parsecs of a fuck about any of these new characters that were introduced in this movie. Woody Harrelson’s character? Didn’t care. Khaleesi’s character? Never cared. That social justice droid (I’m sure it has a name but I don’t care; I’m gonna call the character social justice droid regardless) that was partnered up with Lando? Annoyed the hell out of me!

I don’t know but to me this really felt like a pointless cash grab. You can make that argument about The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi all you want. But the biggest difference in those movies and this one—at least in my opinion—was that not only did I enjoy those movies but they at least felt like Star Wars movies. You can still argue no, but believe it or not George Lucas had something like this planned long before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney. But more importantly, those movies were fun. Did you forget what fun was? Or is fun for you basically a competition to see what goes up your ass the farthest, your thumb or your head? Yeah, I’ll strongly defend those movies with my last breath, what of it?

I cannot defend this one because, to me, this movie forgot to be fun and it didn’t feel like a Star Wars movie. I would honestly give it a D+ but the one sole thing that spares it from that grade and from a hashtag that states “this movie sucks” is one big epic cameo from a long time Star Wars fav character that I did not see coming at all. That cameo left a gigantic smile on my face, and it helped save this movie by a small hair.

But in the end, I had low expectations for this movie and came out unphased by this movie. If you ended up liking it, good for you. I saw this with my mother who isn’t a big Star Wars fan, yet she liked the movie more than I did. For me, not just as a Star Wars fan but as a casual moviegoer, I don’t think I’ll be adding this movie to my Star Wars collection.

Light Side:

-Han and Chewie

-Special effects

-THAT one character cameo

Dark Side:

-Mostly boring

-No real villain

-Didn’t care about new characters

-Colorless

-Cash grab

Final Grade: C-

Those are my thoughts on Solo: A Star Wars Story, the one Star Wars film I didn’t like. But at least it’s not the Star Wars Holiday Special. Have you seen it? What were your thoughts? Any Star Wars characters that deserve their own movie? Please be kind, leave a like and comment, and check back on Prose for more awesome reviews!

Best Quote:

Han Solo: “I got a good feeling about this.”

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