The Wall Street Journal headline to its review of SOLO: A Star Wars Story read: THE FORCE IS WEAK. I agree. When my favorite character in this Star Wars stand-alone is a feisty robot (L3-37 voiced by Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge) you know the movie is in trouble. Woody Harleson plays a conniving scoundrel named Beckett who tutors young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) in the finer points of larceny. Solo meets Chewbacka (Joonas Viljami Suotamo) under dire circumstances, but the two bond almost immediately. Then there’s the treacherous Qi’ra (Emily Clarke), Solo’s one-time lover. Donald Glover convincingly plays young Lando Calrrisian. But, despite the cast, the battle-chase-battle-chase formula wears thin. Set the bar low for this Star Wars episode and you won’t be disappointed. GRADE: B-
Have to agree with you. On the plus side the plot is much easier to follow as it’s self contained. You don’t have to know much about Stars Wars to understand what is going on.
Steve, I enjoyed the other stand-alone STAR WARS movie, ROGUE ONE, better than SOLO. You’re right about the predictable plot being easy to follow.
Meh. They knew they could sell a certain number of tickets by making it a tie-in. They should have thought to themselves, “If we don’t call them Han and Chewie and Lando, would this be worthy of the budget, the hype, and the massive opening?”
I like the idea better that John Scalzi tweeted as a joke: Young Princess Leia.
Jeff, I’d go see YOUNG PRINCESS LEIA! Disney is concerned that SOLO is “underperforming” at the Box Office. They fired the original Directors and brought in Ron Howard to “salvage” SOLO. All that increased the costs of SOLO to $250 million. There’s also the notion that “STAR WARS fatigue” is setting in.
My son liked it but not his son or wife.
Patti, I was mildly entertained by SOLO. But the movie was more of a paint-by-numbers exercise without the imagination of George Lucas.
The problems here are SW fatigue (thanks, Disney) and over-expectations (every time it’s bigger! louder! faster! better!) on the part of both audience and critics. A more low-key Star Wars movie sounds appealing to me, and I’ll probably pick this up to go along with the other movies I have on the shelf. You can also factor in that I’m a guy who enjoyed Parts 1-3.
Rick, as long as you set the bar low, you’ll enjoy SOLO. The costs of the movie mushroomed when the original Directors were fired and Ron Howard was brought in. I read that 70% of SOLO was short by Howard which pushed the costs of SOLO over $250 million.