04 May Solo: A Star Wars Story Review

BLUF: Solo is a pretty darn good space adventure movie, and simultaneously an abysmal Star Wars movie.

I’m reviewing this movie twice, because, as noted above, there are two radically different lenses through which to view it, and depending on which one you choose, the results are dramatically different.

Review 1: As A Star Wars Movie
Solo started out as a project with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the directors of The Lego Movie and 21/22 Jump Street—three of the funniest movies in the years prior to Solo. Lucasfilm hired them based on a script and pitch that was right down their alley: a ridiculously funny comedic take on Han Solo’s origins. They filmed 80% of their movie and were then fired and replaced with Ron Howard. Howard, a technically proficient, studio-friendly filmmaker of almost universally mediocre movies, re-filmed that 80% to fit Lucasfilm’s tonal standard for Star Wars films and utilized a cinematographer who lensed every scene after dilating his eyes. The movie was necessarily rushed through the process of making it twice and shoved into theaters as the first Star Wars movie after The Last Jedi, which was, to put it mildly, divisive.
The result: Solo was a critical and popular failure and ranks as the most spectacular box office failure for live-action Star Wars films. And rightfully so, in my opinion.
Solo would have been wildly popular as an animated ‘The LEGO Han Solo Movie’ with Lord & Miller. I even think their original comedic take would have been better, because it would have been the product of one coherent vision throughout. Instead, it is a mishmash of ideas and tones, with little originality, which may or may not be problematic in a movie billed as an origin story. Which highlights the biggest issue: why did we need an origin story for Han Solo, arguably the best character in the original trilogy? In the OT, Han was a fully developed character whose backstory was sufficiently alluded to in bits and pieces that were shared incidentally through the context of the story of those films. It is a masterclass in character development. So why would you mess with a good thing? Who was asking for this? Didn’t Lucasfilm learn anything from the protracted origin story of Darth Vader in the prequel trilogy, which ultimately diminished that character?
All of that aside (which is no easy task), my biggest problem with Solo is that it plays like someone made a list of every character trait, possession, and line of dialogue directly linked to Han Solo in the OT, and from that list, decided that all of it needed an origin story. Han’s iconic blaster? Origin story. The Kessell Run? Origin story. Han and Chewie’s friendship? Origin story. The line “I have a bad feeling about this”? Origin story. Meeting Lando? Origin story. Han getting the Millennium Falcon? Origin story. This list could go on and on and on.
And the dumbest thing about it is that everything that comprises every facet of Han’s origin apparently happened over about a week of his life. Does that sound a little odd? Everything Han Solo treasures came from one truly crazy week, and in the years between that week and the OT, he did not update anything about his life. This entire premise is so dumb when applied to a beloved Star Wars character and presented as seriously as it is. I think it could have worked, especially if the movie had gone all the way with Lord & Miller’s comedic sense. And how awesome would that have been if at the end of the movie, it flashed forward to post-Return of the Jedi Han telling a bedtime story to a 1-year-old Ben Solo. THAT would have been hilarious: Han Solo embellishing the hell out of his life story to impress his infant kid. And it would not have diminished the larger world and mythology of the Star Wars universe one iota.
There are plenty of other things that are dumb as well, like breaking the 4th wall. At one point, Han walks by an Empire recruiting booth that is playing Vader’s Imperial March by John Williams. Star Wars is a space fantasy adventure series that relies on the audience suspending varying amounts of disbelief and breaking the 4th wall like that shattered my ability to suspend disbelief; I fully transitioned into disbelief that I was watching a terrible movie.
I will admit that there were parts of the movie that I legit enjoyed. The train robbery sequence is great—exactly like something I could imagine in The Mandalorian, if they had a feature-film budget. The Kessell Run was also pretty spectacular. It is based on a throwaway line of dialogue from A New Hope that I think was a mistake in nomenclature: Han brags that he completed the Kessell Run in 12 parsecs, which is a measure of distance, not speed. After years of pointing out the gaff, Lucasfilm decided to lean into it and provide a plausible origin story for that single line of dialogue. Fortunately, their narrative and logical gymnastics resulted in a great chase scene that finally highlighted Han’s real skill as a pilot.
I also think that some of the performances were on point. Donald Glover as Lando was a faithful interpretation of the character by an incredibly talented actor. Woody Harrelson’s Beckett was also played just right. And Chewie is Chewie: always a delight, even though we find out he eats humans, I guess.
But Alden Eirenreich’s Han Solo is a mishmash, which I think was probably due to his character being poorly served by the transition from straight comedy to more-serious action adventure. Han Solo has always been a confident, lucky, but semi-incompetent space pirate, always quick with a joke, some of which swing right back at him. I think Eirenreich has moments where he perfectly captures this, but there are others where his performance seems more like a poor caricature of Harrison Ford, versus a studied homage, like Glover’s Lando. Of course, Eirenreich is in virtually every scene, and much more of the film rests on his shoulders, as opposed to Glover. On top of all that, he is also playing Han Solo at an earlier, more optimistic stage of his life, before he is beaten down and jaded, as we find him in A New Hope. And on top of THAT, we’re also watching a movie about a character we 100% know lives, so introducing any meaningful dramatic tension is difficult. I know this was meant to kick off a Solo trilogy, and I truly believe Eirenreich would have found his footing in parts two and three, but this first (and ultimately only) movie was not a bullseye. Just ‘meh’. Unfortunately, that was more than the movie could bear.
I also can’t not mention that the cinematography of Solo was awful—the entire movie is too dark, and the color palette is restricted to the drabbest of the drab: blacks, greys, browns, etc. The only color is in Lando’s clothes. I watched the movie with one of my best friends, and when we took a break to collect our thoughts (and find some chocolate), I cranked the brightness up to make the rest of the movie bearable. I don’t have a problem with movies that are visually dark: The Batman was far darker, and I loved it. But The Batman’s production design, cinematography, and narrative tone all coalesced to make the darkness a part of the storytelling. Solo is just dark and ugly, and I was constantly convinced that it was dark to hide rushed special effects or incomplete production design. Whatever the reason, it was bad. Period.
Solo is a great example of yet another movie that was the victim of studio meddling to its spectacular misfortune. The fact that The Rise of Skywalker suffered the same fate and much worse immediately after was the final nail in the coffin for Disney’s reputation with Star Wars. The Rise of Skywalker was definitely worse, but the writing on the wall for Disney’s year-over-year release schedule for Star Wars films was evident with Solo, a hyper-expensive failure that should have been more than enough for Lucasfilm to pause and rethink their entire Star Wars strategy. While they have found great success with some of their streaming shows on Disney+, it is not lost on anyone that there are exactly zero live-action Disney Star Wars movies on the schedule in the coming years. They are certainly developing stuff, but Solo and The Rise of Skywalker sank their golden goose, and finding a better way forward is proving precarious for corporate Disney, which expects billion-dollar returns on everything Star Wars.
There is probably a great version of Solo somewhere, but I seriously doubt that Disney will ever let it see the light of day. There is not a movement to restore Lord & Miller’s cut the way fans rallied to restore Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League (which was orders of magnitude better than the theatrical version). The only thing to judge is the movie that was released, and it is a terrible and insulting Star Wars movie that diminishes a beloved character and almost all the mythos around him.

Review 2: As a Not Star Wars Movie
If you could strip Solo of every Star Wars refence by even just the changing names of characters, places, and ships, Solo is a legit blast of fun—a great space adventure that tells the story of a hapless orphan whose criminal upbringing couldn’t diminish his optimism and basic need to do good for those he cared about. It has some amazing action scenes, a bunch of fun characters, and a story that fits the tone: not too serious, not too ridiculous; just right.
I feel like Solo could have kicked off a new trilogy of films set in an entirely new cinematic universe, or even within the Star Wars universe, if they had changed the names. But the problem is, they didn’t. And every character, placename, ship name, and mythological reference comes with strings attached. In reality, those strings are inescapable chains.
As the origin story of a space smuggler, I really enjoyed and related to Han’s overall optimism in a galaxy of infinite space travel, and particular his dedication to Q’ira, his childhood love, who he struggles to find after their unfortunate separation trying to escape their third-world planet. His story is relatable and told within a world where everything is possible, if you have the right connections; but depending on those connections, you may have to give up too much to get what you want. It’s a classic crime story told from the perspective of a very endearing character who just never catches a break.
I really enjoyed Alden Eirenreich’s performance of a non-Han Solo character who happens to share the name of the Star Wars character (if only…). He infuses the role with humor and confidence that is hardly inspired by the world around him but comes from his passion and dreams for the future. It is delightful.
The Kessell Run scene is incredible. There are not enough movies that feature spaceship chases scenes that have the budget and scope of this one, and seeing the Millennium Falcon in its prime, piloted by Han Solo when he has nothing to lose by trying anything to survive, was a joy. It was only dragged down by the thought in the back of my head that it was the product of a single line of non-sensical dialogue from A New Hope 41 years prior…I just couldn’t let the absurdity of that fact go.
Beckett’s crew of thieves was also fun, with enough desperation to justify their risks, and enough confidence to make you think they actually had a chance (they clearly never did). That’s good storytelling: when the hopeless convince you there is hope. And Solo does this multiple times. You might even argue that this is a fundamental facet of Han Solo’s character, so it’s natural he is drawn to the same type of people.
In the end, I’ll watch Solo over TRoS anytime, because it has at its core, a story to tell. Even if it’s a story nobody asked for, it is, at least, coherent and fun. If you can forget everything you know about Star Wars, I think you could argue that this could have kicked off a fantastic trilogy of stories about the up-and-coming adventures of the galaxy’s most unfortunate, but utterly charismatic and lovable smuggler. The real villain of this story was the corporate meddling by Lucasfilm, their lack of vision or trust in proven filmmakers, and a rigid unwillingness to explore stories that deviated in tone and genre from established Star Wars canon. Sadly, it took this film and the following year’s entry to convince Lucasfilm that they needed to try something new. This is the problem with trying to right such a large ship: the time it takes between when a problem to emerges (The Last Jedi) and when it is recognized (The Rise of Skywalker) destroys the potential of anything in between (Solo).

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due
As a final note I remember watching a YouTube video from the Auralnauts; a review of the movie Solo by Kylo Ren. It hit on so many problems with this movie that resonated with me, that I will simply point you towards that gem to more fully flesh out my feelings.

Pros:
Fun, entertaining space adventure if you don’t recognize any of the Star Wars names
Great action scenes, especially the train robbery and Kessell Run
Nice to have a non-Jedi story in the Star Wars universe, though Rogue One and The Mandalorian are far superior

Cons:
Uninspired and unnecessary origin story of one of cinema’s greatest characters
Terrible cinematography
Inconsistent tone and acting
Displays all the classic Disney Star Wars red flags for studio interference
Opportunity cost of what could have been with Lord & Miller

Rating: 2.5/5
I am being a bit generous, simply because TRoS was so much worse, and this movie did have some entertaining action scenes. Ron Howard is technically competent, but rarely excels. That this train wreck ended up mediocre is impressive. I wonder what he could do with no reigns or time constraints…

Review by Jim Washburn