Movie- Solo : a Star Wars story

Movie – Solo : a Star Wars story
Score : 4/10 
Year : 2018
Director:  Ron Howard
Cinematography: Bradford Young
Music: John Powell   ; (and John Williams for Han Solo's theme and original Star Wars music)
Country: USA 
Language: English (+invented sci-fi alien languages) 
Duration: 2h15  
Writers: Jonathan & Lawrence Kasdan 
(based on George Lucas's characters)

Full cast & team (IMDB)


Despite liking the character Han Solo from the Star Wars saga, the Solo prequel dimmed my lights of hope for a decent spin-off movie-series about this gruff bounty hunter turned rebel. 



Despite the sub-title A Star Wars story isn't fully a Star Wars movie, and this title doesn't fully convey its nature, which is an uber-clichéd Western, with Sci-Fi aspects, which include some references to said saga, but I felt that it tried answering far too many questions, too fast. 

It introduces a reason why Han is called Solo, which, IMO, is probably the lamest explanation a writer could think of... 
It also presents us with several key-events and characters we know from the saga, and I felt that part of it should've been divided, to discover more slowly, say over 2 movies, instead of this one. 

Costuming gives away some highly predictable events and nature of some people's true motives, and overall, the movie mixes, badly for my own wishes, predictable events and outcomes on one end, and relies far too much on lengthy western clichés and heists that take far too long, sacrificing tension for predictability, and emotional impact for special effects. 

The cinematography gave us only 3 interesting scenes, including one of that long heist that should have been cut by half ; there is a Lovecraftian beast that is well made, though not anything new in the genre, nor in the saga ; and a pretty but short choreographed martial art scene which should have been longer... The rest of the time, it doesn't shine and feels underwhelming in all its facets. 

The musical score has no personality and never shines either. 

Dialogues are often corny, with far too easy and flat humour, whilst some characters shout too much and when it's female characters (humanoid or droid - as we got out first female droid here), these sound far too shrill.  

The casting for Lando Calrissian is the best part of this movie, alongside more ethnic diversity and more female characters, in the general vein of Disney's Star Wars movies, but, although present and nice, it squanders Woody Harrelson's talent, and as for the Han Solo actor, he has part of the gruff, but not anything close to mannerisms nor voice as that of Harrison Ford's.

Han Solo starts around 13BBY, concurrent to the events of Rogue One, but spans over 6 or so years, ending around 7BBY, which is 7 years before A New Hope. 

I felt no tension, too cheesy dialogues and no threat from the aliens, even the overload creature at the start of the movie felt quite cartoonist & the CGI far too un-convincing. 

Star Wars is a fringe aspect of this first Han Solo prequel, where testosterone fights and heists place it in the Western genre more so than its sci-fi elements. It fails to truly capture, and has no real personality in cinematography, nor music. 

In short, Solo : a Star Wars story falls flat on its face for me. Although I hadn't anticipated an amazing movie, it doesn't even reach the medium entertaining level that I'd hoped for, and I don't plan to re-watch it unless I marathon the entire saga in chronological order  of events. 

Known cast members: 
Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Warwick Davis, Clint Howard, and many others I didn't recon at all. Check full list on IMD linked at the start of this review.