Considering its creation history, this is a more than worthy space western, complete with laughter, tears, and love. And, of course, plenty of action.
Han (Alden Ehrenreich) and Kira (Emilia Clarke) are young lovers forced to live a miserable existence on the planet Corellia. They dream of escaping, but only Han manages to break free, promising to return for his beloved. Years pass, and Solo finds himself in the crew of intergalactic thief Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), who works for the dangerous and deadly Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany). The stakes are raised, but the chance to catch Lady Luck by the tail becomes more real.
One of the most obvious projects in the line of supposed “Star Wars” spin-offs, the film about the “becoming” of Han Solo and his transformation into the famous smuggler unexpectedly turned out to be a tough nut for Disney. Its script began to be written even before George Lucas sold the “Star Wars” universe, but already during filming, the directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, hired by Disney, clashed with screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, and then with the studio management, which resulted in their dismissal. So, Hollywood veteran Ron Howard was invited to finish the film (and reshoot a significant part of the already filmed material).
A Cohesive Space Western
Of course, all this is not very good publicity for a film that claims (well, hopes) to gross billions. It’s nice to see that in the end, it turned out not to be a potential disaster, but a quite coherent and complete space western, most reminiscent of some “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” – here you have a gang of law-defying fortune hunters with complex and intricate relationships between them, and breathtaking chases, and even a train robbery. The movie is not perfect, but it is cheerful, moderately witty, and even, perhaps, not stupid.
Initially, another character played by Michael K. Williams was involved in the plot. However, the actor could not make it to the mandatory reshoots, so his character had to be cut.
Casting Han Solo
One of the key questions that concerned fans of the star saga was the choice of Alden Ehrenreich for the title role. Miles Teller, James Franco, Jack Reynor, Scott Eastwood, Ansel Elgort, Jack O’Connell, and about half of the more or less starry Hollywood young people were eager to play Han Solo, but the choice of the Disney bosses fell on an actor who, with all the desire, could not be mistaken for a young Harrison Ford. Nevertheless, Ehrenreich so successfully copies Ford’s facial expressions and gestures that during viewing you almost forget about their external dissimilarity – almost, because sometimes Alden even overdoes it with the famous smirk, and he still lacks Ford’s purely external “pedigree” stature. Ehrenreich is also quite adequate as an actor – his Solo is self-confident, enterprising, and hot, just right for an ironic space action movie.
Origin Story
According to the plot, “Solo” is a typical “origin story” – a movie needed primarily as fan service, giving fans of the franchise answers to the questions “How?”, “Where from?” and “Why?”. How did Solo meet Chewbacca? How does he know Lando Calrissian and under what circumstances did he win the Millennium Falcon from him? Why doesn’t Han work for the Empire? It must be said that here, unlike “Rogue One”, whose events the authors brought right to the beginning of “A New Hope”, the story is interrupted, in fact, in mid-sentence, introducing one of the iconic heroes of the main cycle in the final scenes and leaving room for potential sequels – not all knots are tied, not all questions are answered. Disney can be understood here – another potentially blockbuster cycle will not be superfluous.
What’s Wrong with “Solo”?
So what’s wrong with “Solo”? But this is a very difficult question, because the answer to it, apparently, strongly depends on whether you are a fan of “Star Wars” in general, and if so, how much you accept “creative search” within this franchise. The film is little like the classic trilogy, but it does not have the plastic coldness of the first episodes, or the somewhat strained colorfulness of the seventh and eighth episodes. Like “Rogue One”, this is an attempt to grope for something new, without departing from the canon, but the attempt is somewhat indecisive and cautious – apparently, it was here that the departure of Lord and Miller, who initially tried to shoot a full-fledged adventure comedy with gags and actor improvisations, had the strongest effect. The result is a typical Ron Howard film – a brilliant Hollywood craftsman, whose main advantage has always been the ability to skillfully adapt to almost any genre and any style. But at the same time, “Solo”, like many, even the most deserved and respected films of Ron Howard, with all its abundance of action, special effects and plot twists, has its own face hardly visible – and in the case of such a character as Han Solo, this is a serious miscalculation.