Solo: A Star Wars Story Movie Review (2018)

Hey look guys. welcome to my today's movie blog and this is my quick review of the brand new Star Wars film Solo: a Star Wars story. I'll be honest with you I hate the a Star Wars story name so I'm just gonna call it Star Wars solo. This is a true origin film as we meet Han Solo, this young guy in the shipyards of corillia, how he moves on to go offworld, how he meets Chewbacca, how he meets Lando Calrissian, how he goes from that kid living in that rough world to becoming the Millennium Falcon piloting swashbuckling scoundrel that we know and love Han Solo.

Alright let's first talk about the things that I really like about this movie. First of all in the grand picture of things and I think I tweeted this out, I said this you know as much as I love Rogue One and as much as I really like Last Jedi in fact the matter is those are two very kind of heavy films and I said after the heaviness of Rogue One in the Last Jedi. Star Wars Solo is just a great palate cleanser it is just a pure fun adventure movie and you got that sense of them right as soon as the movie started, they kind of introduced you guys hey this is the kind of movie, this one is a fun adventure and they just crush it. And of course one of the big question marks going into this film was, can somebody anybody play the role of Han Solo whose name isn't Harrison Ford? let alone this kid that a lot of people had never heard of before Alden Ehrenreich now I was one of the few guys and I was very excited when I heard that Alden Ehrenreich got the role because I loved him in Hail Caesar even though I didn't like that movie I thought he was terrific in it and I thought he would do a pretty good job but even I didn't think he would do this good of a job. He doesn't just come in and play Han Solo.

He becomes Han Solo. He becomes that eras Han Solo and really you just got to take your hat off to him because really if he doesn't convince you if Alden Ehrenreich doesn't come in and convince you that he's Han Solo, almost nothing else that they do even do well in this movie would work. It would all kind of crumble under the weight of that but he does convince you that he is Han Solo and he becomes one of the real strengths of the movie and playing off Aaron Reich's ability to play Han Solo comes the absolute best thing about this movie without question to me the very best thing of Star Wars solo is the chemistry dynamic and relationship between Han Solo and Chewbacca. They captured it perfectly.
And going down that let me just talk about Chewbacca for a second I've mentioned this before but you know coming out of the first Avengers movie a lot of things that the critics were buzzing about was finally we get to see the Hulk we've always been waiting for and that was true but coming out of Solo one of the first things in my mind was we finally get the Chewbacca we've all been waiting for and I'm not gonna give anything away but Chewbacca is definitely one of the stars of this film and getting back to the original point that the relationship and chemistry and dynamic and the nature of the relationship between Han and Chewie is so perfectly captured as you're watching it in its Genesis it's very beginning.

You can see where their relationship ship goes from there every time these two were on-screen together and interacting was just one of the highlights of the film I absolutely adored that part. Now if one of the things that everybody's really questioning was whether Alden Ehrenreich could play Han, everybody was just flat-out excited the moment it was announced that Donald Glover was gonna be playing Lando. Did he live up to it? Oh hell yes he does. Listen, the first scene or two that Donald Glover is on-screen as Lando I swear to God if you close your eyes and just listen not just to the voice itself but the inflections of the waist the way he spoke you would have been forgiven if you actually thought Billy Dee Williams secretly got into the movie and was playing Lando again like you totally would have bought into that, Donald Glover totally embodies the spirit of Lando Calrissian all the good and all the bad things about it he just captured it, so then seeing him on there now interacting with Han and Chewie it just made for really I'll use the D word delightful experience.

Some other notable things I really like, the music in the film was used perfectly both the new original stuff and when they decided to pick and use old Star Wars music they picked and used it at the exact right time the whole event the flying action and adventure the gunfights the heist the supporting cast in this film was very strong like we don't even have time to go into Woody Harrelson Thandie Newton Jon Favreau and all the other supporting Paul Bettany as the main villain in the film like there's just a lot of really good solid elements to this movie.

However that's a good segue for us to go into some of the negative things and solo is not a perfect movie for example the first act there is some clunkiness you may have seen some other people tweeting about this and I agree with them there's some clunkiness in the first act yes later in the film you see how a lot of that stuff was necessary to set up what comes later but still they probably could have told a smoother way. Now a lot of that might have to do with the big massive transition between losing their original directors and then bringing in Ron Howard and like reshooting like 80% of the movie that might attribute to that but still as a film fan I'm watching it there were some there were some clunkiness some of it in the opening act could have been a little smoother. Now where a lot of really good movies also then stumble is not the third act but the last part of the third act and I found that the last part of the third act again like the first act was a little bit clunky like it didn't feel as smooth or as polished as all the vast majority of the rest of the film did.

Don't get me wrong the endings are good ending and there's actually a terrific little bit at the end that could be a big spoiler so I'm not gonna mention it but again getting into that conclusion of the film like a lot of other films they seem to stumble a little bit coming across the finish line solo does cross the finish line but not as smooth as the rest of the vast majority of the film does.

And if I'm gonna complain about anything else it would be man who could have used even more han and chewie screen time but they did give you a lot in that part was great. Listen, overall solo is not a perfect film it's not a film that's going to be in the discussion of "is this top 5 movies of the year when the end of the year comes around" no, but what it is it is a pure fun summer adventure sci-fi film, that's what they were going for, that's what they absolutely crush. We do get to see Han Solo on screen again being played by Alden Ehrenreich the dynamic between Han and Chewie is wonderful, the action the adventure is wonderful, good supporting cast.

Alright look, it's just a fun movie that I think a lot of people can have a really good time watching, the question is would have been your expectations going into solo or the reviews you hearing lining up for what you were thinking, do they sound better than you were hoping, do they sound worse than you were hoping, jump into the comments section and let me know your thoughts.

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