“Solo” is a fun, action filled adventure across the seedy underbelly of the “Star Wars” universe, where absolutely everyone is a backstabbing, manipulative scumbag looking to selfishly benefit themselves, and it’s awesome! “Solo” tells the story of how the lovable smuggler Han Solo came to be, demonstrating his first forays into criminal life. The story is unconventional for “Star Wars” because there are so few heroes, but this movie explores the darker side of the Star Wars universe and expose the crime and oppression necessary for the lavish spaceships and galactic empires shown in the rest of the series.
In the same vein as “Rogue One,” “Solo” tries to take a darker tone compared to the original “Star Wars” films. However, unlike its predecessor, “Solo” is unable to properly address this darker ambiance. While some scenes are incredibly dark, both in terms of lighting and themes, the movie is also full of humor, and most character deaths are insignificant and generally neglected, which is a disappointment, because it makes it hard for “Solo” to be as gritty as it aspires to be.
The acting in “Solo” is phenomenal: Alden Ehrenreich really nails the self-confident cockiness of Han and does a great job bringing young Han Solo to life. The other performances are fine, but none are quite as memorable as Solo himself.
“Solo” manages to be a proper adventure, with incredible action scenes — especially the entire train heist, which was awesome because of the incredible action and the unique setting. Speaking of the setting, that is one of “Solo’”s major triumphs. Seeing these incredibly unique worlds from poor industrial cities to the opulent den of a crime lord truly immerses the audience the world “Solo” presents.
The plot of “Solo” is largely compelling, telling the ever so common story of a group of thieves having to make a big score. Even though the larger story may be cliche, it still serves its purpose of driving the plot forward, while the more interesting stories in “Solo” are that of the characters themselves. All of the central characters in “Solo” are interesting, and are all unique, because as mentioned previously, they all have different concrete goals that are central to their character, so none of them are too forgettable or dull. The overall story does slip a bit in the ending — because “Solo” was determined to shock the audience — so every single character is revealed to be a backstabbing traitor. While that isn’t a problem in its own right, the audience can only be surprised so many times until the twists become routine, and constantly revealing that a character was secretly a double, triple crossing hero who is also secretly a villain just confuses the audience, and doesn’t add to the overall story.
Another problem with “Solo” is that it seems to be dedicated to rehashing the glory days of Han Solo from the original trilogy. Some references are fine, one of the best parts of the movie is in fact a reference to older Han Solo, but if the movie was less obsessed with reminding us that Han Solo once fought a space monster in “The Empire Strikes Back” it could present a more interesting scene rather than the seven minutes focused around a boring giant space monster without real consequence or relevance to the rest of the plot. Furthermore, these references also subverted Han’s actual character growth in “Solo.” This movie was so dedicated to demonstrating that Han Solo was still a good guy in the end, willing to sacrifice personal gain to help the greater good, that it forgot that Han Solo was still a cynical, selfish jerk in the beginning of “A New Hope.”
However these criticisms are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, and “Solo” remains an enjoyable and epic space adventure about the darker side of the “Star Wars” universe.
