Another year, another Star Wars movie. This time, it’s the backstory of our beloved Han. I must confess, I didn’t expect this movie to be all that good. Boy, was I wrong!
THE BLURB:
Young Han Solo finds adventure when he joins a gang of galactic smugglers, including a 196-year-old Wookie named Chewbacca. Indebted to the gangster Dryden Vos, the crew devises a daring plan to travel to the mining planet Kessel to steal a batch of valuable coaxium. In need of a fast ship, Solo meets Lando Calrissian, the suave owner of the perfect vessel for the dangerous mission — the Millennium Falcon.
WHAT WORKED:
The single biggest thing I think ALL of us expected to be frustrating and not work about this movie was watching someone other than Harrison Ford play Han Solo…well, that person was Alden Ehrenreich…and he was FANTASTIC. I mean it. He. Was. So. GOOD. Totally and completely took me by surprise. He was sincere, funny, mischevious, smart, dashing…everything you’d expect and need Han Solo to be. Bra-vo.
Ron Howard was another thing that really made me nervous about this film. I shouldn’t have been. Dude’s been nominated for Oscars for a reason…he knows story, and he knows cinema. He knew that this movie needed to be a Western. An “origin story” is not a genre. It’s not enough just to be that…so, he gave us a Western heist film. It starts with a train job, and it gets progressively bigger and double-cross-ier from there. I was 1,000% in. Even Han’s early adventures as a member of the Imperial Infantry.
Guys…the first act of this movie are virtually PERFECT. The rest works, too, don’t get me wrong…it’s just the beginning of the movie that was my favorite.
SPEAKING of, we get to meet a crew of intrepid theives, bandits, at the beginning of the movie…and jesus was I in on them. I wish we had more time with them. It is NOT EASY to make the audience fall in love with a brand-new set of characters in the span of a few minutes, and they did it in this film. I do think it was a mistake to not keep them around for longer.
BUT…we do get to keep the best of that group in Woody Harrelson’s Beckett…and holy poop, is he a character worthy of the immortality that comes with the Star Wars canon. He was SO. GOOD. So fucking good. The guide and lesson for a young Han.
And now we have to talk about the other third pillar that propped this movie up: Chewbacca. Han and Chewie are MAGIC. Magic, guys. From how they first meet, to how they become friends. to how the interact and love/fight each other…they’re best friends, and it’s just wonderful to see how it all happens. They save each other, over and over. It’s beautiful.
The other thing that worked in this movie, which was a complete surprise to me, was the nostalgia. I *hate* the way JJ Abrams uses nostalgia in his films. It’s always so forced, so winky-eyed to the fanboys, and so out of place in the context of the story. It never works for me.
…it works in this film. Holy crap does it work. I loved every little detail. Howard never lingered to long, or beat me over the head with the history I was seeing unfold. He never let it supercede the here and now, it was always an added layer of reality and complexity.
I also have to shoutout to the heists, particularly the train job, the Falcon (so shiny!), Lando’s closet, and figuring out how the hell “she did the Kessel run in 12 parsecs” actually makes sense! 🙂
WHAT DIDN’T:
While I obviously really, truly enjoyed this film, there are some gripes, and one of them is a rather major one: the love story.
Han’s internal motivation in this film hinges on a love story that I never fully bought. It was never real enough for me. I never believed it. It never made my heart pound or my skin flush in that way when we’re watching real chemistry on screen. And that was a shame because, as I mentioned, it’s the reason Han does pretty much everything he does. It subtracts from the story in that way that’s the difference between a movie that you really like and enjoy…and one that you’re obsessed with and watch over and over and over again while screaming at everyone you know “you have to go see this immediately!”
The rest of my gripes are pretty small and not really all that important:
I was disappointed by Donald Glover! I was so excited to see him play Lando, and while he does the *voice* to absolute perfection…I found almost every moment of his performance to be overdone and even cartoonish at certain points. Not all of it was his fault: some of it was the scenes they wrote (one comes to mind in particular where he’s alone and hamming up for a holo-recorder for what he called “The Lando Chronicles”). It’s all delivered with a false performance-y ring. I agree with what they were TRYING to do with Lando…but it just doesn’t end up working.
I was also disappointed with Emilia Clarke! Bae! Khaleesee! She, too, was almost always “acting” on screen, whereas everyone else was playing their role with truth and sincerity. She over did it. It’s part of the reason why the love story with Han didn’t work, although a minor part.
Lastly…the music just wasn’t very good. Some of the scores were jarring, one in particular that sounded like The Lion King. No joke. I’ve never had a problem with any of the new movie’s music…in fact, I particularly LOVE the Rogue One score…but this one was not up to par.
So…in the end…this movie is very, very good. It’s *surprisingly* good. It’s certainly not perfect, and it’s not a movie that ultimately really made me FEEL anything profound (that love story, man! Just missed it!)…but it is probably the best of the new movies. Easily, actually…with Rogue One perhaps just behind it. So, yeah…when you’ve made the 4th best Star Wars movie of all time, you’ve done a hell of a job. Bravo! 🙂
8 out of 10 – surprisingly good, go see it in theaters!