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We saw Solo and it did its job
May. 29th, 2018 12:02 pmSolo: A Star Wars Story is pretty much exactly what it says on the label - a story in the Star Wars universe that involves a couple characters you already know, some more you don't, and covering events prior to what we've seen in the mainline movies. 3/5 stars for being competent and workmanlike fun, unless you're one of those "why do we need a goddamn backstory to everything anyway - this is Star Wars, not the MCU" people in which case you're going to hate this.
The movie is the most unsurprising "surprise" movie I've seen in a long time, mostly because the established characters get exactly the beats you'd expect them to get and the plot is full of "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" moments. It falls to the new characters to do things to move it along and they mostly do a good job in the few bits you get between extended action sequences.
Woody Harrelson is quite good as the grizzled old wise gangster Beckett. Emilia Clarke is OK as Qi'ra except for her... what IS that accent? And why does nobody else from her planet or even neighborhood have the same accent? That accent threw me more than the various plot and physics howlers.
Thandie Newton is good, if on-screen for too little of the movie as Val, the smarter half of the gang-leading duo with Beckett. Paul Bettany is appropriately menacing as Dryden Vos. He could totally do a "No, Mr Solo, I expect you to DIE" line and it would work.
The stand-out of the movie is probably L3-37, voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Following in the tradition of K-2SO, L3 provides the snarky robotic counterpoint for a chunk of action and in this movie tackles the question of "how, exactly, do these sentient androids deal with... y'know, being slaves?"
The three established characters are handled by Alden Ehrenreich (Han Solo), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), and Donald Glover (Lando Calrissian). All are competent to their roles as younger versions of famous persons, but none of them exactly knocked me over. Likewise, there's nothing really remarkably about the Kasdans' script nor Ron Howard's direction. It's just kind of there, and it's not bad. A few entertaining hours, not really that memorable.
( Spoiler time, but I have to talk about this timeline )
The movie is the most unsurprising "surprise" movie I've seen in a long time, mostly because the established characters get exactly the beats you'd expect them to get and the plot is full of "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" moments. It falls to the new characters to do things to move it along and they mostly do a good job in the few bits you get between extended action sequences.
Woody Harrelson is quite good as the grizzled old wise gangster Beckett. Emilia Clarke is OK as Qi'ra except for her... what IS that accent? And why does nobody else from her planet or even neighborhood have the same accent? That accent threw me more than the various plot and physics howlers.
Thandie Newton is good, if on-screen for too little of the movie as Val, the smarter half of the gang-leading duo with Beckett. Paul Bettany is appropriately menacing as Dryden Vos. He could totally do a "No, Mr Solo, I expect you to DIE" line and it would work.
The stand-out of the movie is probably L3-37, voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Following in the tradition of K-2SO, L3 provides the snarky robotic counterpoint for a chunk of action and in this movie tackles the question of "how, exactly, do these sentient androids deal with... y'know, being slaves?"
The three established characters are handled by Alden Ehrenreich (Han Solo), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), and Donald Glover (Lando Calrissian). All are competent to their roles as younger versions of famous persons, but none of them exactly knocked me over. Likewise, there's nothing really remarkably about the Kasdans' script nor Ron Howard's direction. It's just kind of there, and it's not bad. A few entertaining hours, not really that memorable.
( Spoiler time, but I have to talk about this timeline )
