Review's Resort: Talkie Tuesday: Solo

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ..."

Hello everyone!

So.

I know.

Get it out of your system.

I'M LATE.

Yet again, I'm late to this bandwagon. In my defense, I've been pumping out reviews for both movies and books for a while now. And I still have stuff to see and to read. You have to love that, right?

Right.

That being said, however, there was just something about tonight's blog theme that caught me in a completely meh mood, and while I knew I'd eventually sit down to it, it took me about forever and a day to do so.

I mean it's almost been a full year since it's worldwide premiere!

So here we go. Solo: A Star Wars Story, begins now.

But before that, as always, you can find the link to all my previous Star Wars movie reviews at the bottom of this page; one day, I'll have them all, so that I can look back and rank them from best to worst. Gotta catch 'em all, right?

Right.

Now to the review proper, which I've been putting off just as much as seeing the movie, and in thinking about why this is, I've come up with a few good conclusions.

1. I'd seen The Last Jedi and was as uninspired about this new Star Wars environment and plots as you can possibly be, and at that point I hadn't even gone into the Expanded Univers/Legends books!

2. I knew I was going to have a hard time imagining anyone but Harrison Ford as Han Solo, but this was a minor concern after the actor himself gave his blessing. Still, there was just something about Alden Ehrenreich that struck me as no bueno for the role.

3. A really good friend of mine (and by that I mean we've been friends for so long it's hard to remember a time when we weren't on Donald-quacking-basis!) was, first, on the fence about the movie, and then his reaction was negative upon seeing it. And he's a HUGE Star Wars fan.

So I mean. What's a girl to do?

Reviews came pouring in for Solo and none of them were showering the story with rainbows and fireworks, so in the end, it took the combined efforts of diving into several Star Wars books and getting into the proper mood, so to speak, for me to start watching it.

Conversely, however, another good friend of mine said that she'd enjoyed the movie, especially once Lando Calrissian made his on-screen debut.

Okay. Disclaimers done. We're making the jump to lightspeed; punch it!

We start our story on Corellia, which, if I remember right, is the actual planet we need when associating with Han Solo, and we jump right into action as Han is a little bit busy, stealing.

Same old, right?

Anyway, we learn that children are forced to steal to survive, and that Han, along with his lover Qi'Ra (played by Emilia Clarke, our Khaleesi) are planning on pawning a small piece of the loot so that they can bribe officials and get off-planet. Their plan goes slightly sideways (as plans in the Star Wars universe normally do), and they end up chased, separated, and pretty much defeated, as Qi'Ra is apprehended and Han is left on his own.

With no other means and no desire to return, at least not without a ship to save his girlfriend with, he goes to enlist in the Imperial Navy, and the officer there grants him the surname 'Solo', because he's all alone.

Oookay. Morbid much.

So our would-be future smuggler ends up fighting for the Empire as a foot soldier because, lo and behold, someone has problems with authority, so he got himself kicked out of the Academy, and now accidentaly lands himself with Beckett (Woody Harrelson), who seems to be an Imperial Captain but is actually a criminal. Han makes the connection and, seeing as fighting for the Empire really isn't all that they advertised, he puts himself forward to go with Beckett and his group.

Unfortunately for him, Beckett has him arrested for desertion (or almost desertion), and Han ends up thrown into a cage with a whole lot of mud ... and one enraged Wookiee.

You guessed it, it's time for our favourite walking carpet to make an appearance, and Chewbacca wastes no time to try and eat Han for dinner, only to get the shock of his life when it's revealed Han understands his native language. Our boy manages to convince the Wookiee to work together so they can escape, and I land in a giggling fit as the two Stormtroopers on top of the cage first fall into it after Chewie takes out the support beam, and then bodily tosses Han out of there like he's a sack of grain.

You show 'em, Chewie!

Now on the run, Han takes Chewie to Beckett, who's impressed, and takes the two along since Wookiee muscle would be useful on any job around the galaxy (not so useful is probably showering with said Wookiee; can you imagine the plumbing after all that mud and hair got in?!?). And he needs the extra set of hands since he's stealing a shipment of Coaxium.

All would have gone well even with Han and Chewie still finding their crime legs (and forging a cute bond in the process) if not for the arrival of someone else on the scene.

These guys are called Cloud Riders, and they're led by Enfys Nest, who totally blows the entire entreprise to shreds as Han is forced to uunload the Coaxium, but Nest allows it to explode, so now Beckett is going back to his boss empty-handed.

And who's boss, you ask?

Someone convinced Paul Bettany to play Dryden Vos, a high-ranking and highly unstable crime boss in a syndicate called the Crimson Dawn, but we'll forgive him for this lapse in judgement since this is where we run into Qi'Ra once more, and she's revealed to be Dryden's second in command. Also some sort of peaceful influence/potential lover/something, seeing as she keeps causally touching him and calming him down.

Anyway, Beckett now owes Dryden the Coaxium, so Han makes a suggestion: how about stealing it raw and THEN having it worked over before delivery? That could probably work.

In the history of bad ideas by Han Solo, this one probably doesn't rank that high up (highly explosive substance that might kaboom you and your entire ship plus whatever's around you if you're not punctual? Nah, no biggie), plus Qi'Ra's tagging along since they kind of need a ship, so there's THAT.

And finally, enter Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover).

I'll admit, up until this point in the movie, I was feeling meh about the whole thing and contemplating shutting it down. Lando's appearance suddenly livened everything up somehow, and made it bearable. He's as a definite crook though, cheating at sabacc so that Han can't actually win the Millenium Falcon in this round yet, but Lando DOES agree to tag along, so the lot of them head over to Kessel to steal that Coaxium.

The lot includes Lando's talkative and opinionated droid L3, which, even if it's entirely faulty (and the fact that she's a she and ends up talking to Qi'Ra about relationships and how Lando has feelings for her is just waaay off), is so hilarious and an injection of humour this movie SORELY needed at this point.

On Kessel, things go smoothly, up to a point - this is Star Wars, so I mean, three quarters of a plan is bound to work, right? Right.

It's always the last quarter you have to be wary of, so of course things go sideways again.

During the chaos to cover their escape, Han is left to his own devices for a time while Chewie goes to free some other Wookie slaves he sees in the mines, L3 stages a droid revolution and some sort of miners insurrection, Qi'Ra kicks ass and destroys one of Lando's capes (he's got wardrobes of these on the Falcon, I can't even), and Chewie returns to Han's side when we pretty much all knew he would, but it was still fun watching Han and his puny strength.

But remember that last quarter of the plan? Well, it gets stomped on by an Imperial blockade.

Also, L3 kicked the bucket, so they don't have her anymore, but they connect her navigational computer to the ship itself, downloading L3 into the Falcon (so THAT'S why Lando loves the ship so much, huh?), and Han takes them through the uncharted Kessel Run to escape the blockade and the TIA Fighters on their tail. Plus, there's a space kraken in there. A SPACE KRAKEN.

The ship is unfortunately damaged, so they barely make it to the planet for processing the Coaxium, at which point Lando takes off just as Enfys Nest arrives again to take control. Also, Dryden Vos is on his way, and Qi'Ra explains to Han she can't just turn her back on Crimson Dawn, she owes them.

Anyway, Enfys explains to Han that, unlike what we all previously thought, her gang aren't pirates - they're fighting against the Empire, one of the many groups doing so, trying to get out from under the Emperor's oppressive thumb. She offers him a part if he wants to join them, but he turns her down, even if he does sympathise. With that though comes his idea to double-cross Dryden, but Beckett alerts the boss of that, and then double-tricks EVERYBODY to walk away with the Coaxium AND Chewie.

Han thinks he's a goner when Qi'Ra has him pinned, but she turns on Dryden Vos and kills him, then sends Han after Chewie, promising to be right behind him.

Instead, though, she isn't - she takes the big boss place in the hierarchy and calls the big bad behind Crimson Dawn to explain the situation and leave to meet with him. I'll come back to him in a minute, because we need to save Chewie first.

Han shoots Beckett, even though he doesn't really want to, but in the end the lesson 'don't trust anybody' has been learned, especially as he sees Qi'Ra leaving, too. He gives the Coaxium to Enfys, and with a vial of the stuff he takes off with Chewie to find Lando - and this time win in sabacc since he nips the card Lando uses to cheat with, winning the Falcon in the game.

Once on it, he tells Chewie about a crime lord that's putting together a job on Tatooine - and when has Han EVER steered Chewie wrong?

YEAH RIGHT.

Still, that's where we leave our two heroes, and for a final note return to the big crime boss Qi'Ra's on her way to meet. You may have heard of him: his name is Darth Maul. And apparently he's got metal legs now. To briefly refresh everyone's memory: Maul is introduced in The Phantom Menace as the Sith apprentice to Darth Sidious, and he's defeated on Naboo by Obi-Wan Kenobi, by being sliced in half and tossed down a garbage chute. Or whatever the heck that shaft is, I really don't remember right now. The point is, I nearly spewed tea all over my screen when he popped up. I never got the chance to watch the Clone Wars show, in which it's apparently explained how this guy survived, sewed himself together, and ended up getting defeated AGAIN by Obi-Wan, this time dying for real.

The timeline still doesn't add up in my mind, not really, but the more I'm trying to wrap my head around it, the more it hurts, so I'm just going to drop it. Movies, right? Apparently, there was no other smart villain to use so they decided to bring back Maul, somehow. Not the most original solution, I'll give them that.

And I have to admit, the movie as a whole is somewhat ... uninspiring. Sure, I laughed. There were comical inserts, and Emilia Clarke finally had more emotional spectrum to her acting than in some of her other works (besides Game of Thrones) I've seen her in, so that's a plus. However, something just felt oddly flat about this entreprise as a whole. Was it the actor playing Han? Or the portrayal of Han himself? I'm not sure. I can't put my finger on it. All I can say is, however, that if you took the title away and renamed the characters something else, the movie might have done better with audiences in general. Maybe our expectations are much too high, but I mean ... this is Star Wars we're talking about!