Review - SOLO: A Star Wars Story

Grade: B+

By Ken The Critic @kenthecritic

Every actor would love to be inside the Star Wars Universe and that's why Woody Harrelson tried out for his role in SOLO. Thandie Newton commented that, "You know that it's going to be iconic. You know that every effort is going to be made to make what you are doing better. You are going to have to crush it." And everyone did crush it. This Star Wars addition is refreshing and fun and definitely worth a watch especially in spite of changing directors from Phil Lord and Chris Miller to Ron Howard three weeks before shooting was suppose to end. A lot of people felt that Ron Howard saved the film, including main actress Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) who plays Qi'ra.

Written by father and son Jonathan Kasdan and Lawrence Kasdan, Han (Alden Ehrenreich) and his girlfriend, Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) are trying to escape against a crime organization. Han gets a hyperfuel called coaxium and gives it to an officer in trade to let them escape. Some officers run to them and Han manages to get free as they are capturing Qi'ra.

Han doesn't come from any family and as he enlists to become a pilot for the Empire, they give him the last name Solo. After three years of training and fighting, he gets kicked out for being defiant. Han's main goal is to get back to Qi'ra. Han uncovers three thieves that are posing to be fighters, Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), his girlfriend, Val (Westwood's Thandie Newton), and a alien named Rio Durant (voiced by Jon Favreau). After Han tries to blackmail them, he is thrown in a pit with a beast that they think will eat him. This beast is none other than Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and he starts fighting Han, but Han starts speaking the Wookie language, and they quickly become frenemies. The thieves believe that Han and Chewbacca can help them pull off a heist of stealing a bunch of coaxium. In the middle of the heist, things go wrong and Han drops the coaxium from the train in the mountains causing a large explosion. Beckett is worried that he is going to be killed because this job wasn't completed and it was for Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), who is leader of the Crimson Dawn Organization. Han offers to help Beckett get some more coaxium.

The three of them go meet Dryden at his ship only to find Qi'ra, who is Dryden's right hand woman now. Han tells them that they could get coaxium from the planet Kessel so off on the mission they go. Dryden has Qi'ra join them to make sure everything goes as planned. You know what is going to happen here as they rekindle their feelings for each other. They need a ship so Qi'ra takes them to meet Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover). Lando and his droid girlfriend, L3-37 joins them and allows them to use his ship, the Millennium Falcon.

This movie is a nice prequel to the original trilogy. It's fun to see bigheaded Solo and Lando play off each other already knowing their history in Empire Strikes Back and Ehrenreich and Glover do an excellent job. It might bother you that they are so sure of themselves when they aren't always on top of their game, but just imagine that they had to go through a lot to become the middle aged men that they are in Empire. And it's nice to see the origin of Chewbacca and Han's friendship. The story stays simple and there are a couple of interesting surprises.

Ken's Movie Review Grading Scale

A - Superb and solid; a movie that will be etched in your mind 10 years from now

B - Good movie, so good in fact that you would want to see it again before it's out of the theaters; the story may drag in places

C - Average, entertaining at parts; you might want to wait and rent it

D - Lacks a lot from entertainment, plot, realism, development, etc.

F - Terrible and you will want to walk out of the movie; no redemptive qualities whatsoever