Solo directed by Ron Howard
We don't have to extol the qualifications of Ron Howard. The Oscar-winning director has distinguished himself over the past few decades with such films as "A Beautiful Mind" "Frost/Nixon" and "Apollo 13." For "Solo - A Star Wars Story" (title is superfluous), Howard brings his playful nature to the forefront. Stuck to the genre's dogma, Howard could only tweak characterizations and not deviate from the Holy Gospel according to Lucas (and his ardent followers). The origin story is filled with lots of near misses and conflict we've come to expect from these larger than life space tales. Solo is no different from the others. We see the same background characters and the same hardware present in all Star Wars pictures. Missing is the fun. While Solo retains his clever nature, I didn't sense that same quality of cowboy recklessness Ford demonstrated in the first film (now deemed the fourth in the series). His shouting lines "Yahoo! You're all clear, Kid. Now let's blow this thing and go home." You pictured him on a horse, riding to the rescue. Instead, we have a subdued Han ("That's Hahn"), tempered by his hard life as a child, full of regrets, full of sad wisdom despite his supposed young age. I write this not-so-much as a criticism of the film or its director and more as I stated, a lament, for the innocence expressed in the first film, that wide-eyed wonder we all experience in our youth when we encounter something new. The romance that should be there isn't. It's as if Howard delivered a technically perfect movie with no soul.
I don't mean to take away any part of the movie that is exciting and it is with one scene that harkens back to the original in homage that did spark the first film (1977) in a way I can't express here without spoiling it for fans. Needless to say, I poked my son's side and almost yelled "It's John Williams!" in the theater. He had to calm me down. You can't miss it because its the one scene in the film that can't be missed and should be the most uplifting scene for all fans of the Star Wars movies. So while I found Ford's style of acting a let down, I found Donald Glover's Lando spot on. In fact, as I said to my son, if I closed my eyes, I could hear Glover channeling Billy Dee Williams. Glover's scenes had that sparkle and wit missing from Alden Ehrenreich's interpretation of young Han Solo. Strange, too, because Ehrenreich's part in "Hail Caesar" as Hobie Doyle is exactly how he should have played Solo... and didn't. I thought Woody Harrelson, while an excellent actor, miscast as the original rebel, Becket. He played Woody, which was fine for the "The Hunger Games" but somehow out of place here. He drew too much attention to his character through his acting style; though he played the action scenes with enough James Bond flair to distinguish that aspect of the film. I thought the quiet scenes pulled me out of the movie and I kept seeing his other work come through. Too much chumminess on the set, I suppose.
In the end, Star Wars reveals much for fans to gobble. They not only get their backstory, but they also get a glimpse of how Disney plans to take the franchise into the future, with a never-ending barrage of spin-off movies that will spew out the same kind of near-miss action we've come to expect from this genre. They run the risk of posing that too often, until a jaded public will finally say, as they have with Bond and Star Trek - enough is enough.
