OVP: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Stars: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany
Director: Ron Howard
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I never quite know whether or not to qualify myself as a proper Star Wars fan.  During my youth, I kind of dismissed the franchise as a bit gauche, I was so into more prestige cinema, and admittedly there are a lot of faults in the film's dialogue and repetitive character structuring.  This was proven accurate when the prequels came out and everyone abandoned the franchise, or at least qualified their love.  But in the years since, heading into The Force Awakens, I changed my tune a bit.  I now have a Star Wars shirt, and genuinely, gleefully shouted out loud when I saw the new trailer when Billy Dee Williams came in laughing.  It might be because there are so few filmic series that rival some of the obsessions people have otherwise in pop culture with video games or television shows that I can't really dismiss one of the few franchises that genuinely inspire such passion, even if I don't always return that ardor.

(Spoilers Ahead) This is all to say that when a movie like Solo comes along that sharply divides the major fandoms of Star Wars, I'm one of the few people who go into it ready to judge it on its merits, rather than feel some sort of betrayal if it doesn't match what I want from the film, or be ambivalent because I didn't care about what came before it in the series.  The film, the second stand-alone Star Wars movie, looks at a young Han Solo (Ehrenreich) who starts the picture escaping from the law, and loses his love Qi'ra (Clarke) when she's apprehended during their escape; he eventually joins the Imperial Navy.  We thus explore the origin story of Han Solo, learning how he initially met Chewbacca & Lando.  We also see him reunite later with Qi'ra, but she's now the lientenant of Vos (Bettany), a chief aide in the Crimson Dawn, run by Darth Maul (whom you remember from the prequels, and in a moment that made quite a few people in my audience gasp, is reprised briefly by the original actor Ray Park).  With his rough-and-tumble friend Beckett (Harrelson), Han and Chewbacca try to steal some coaxium (hyperspace fuel) from Vos, but in the process Vos is killed by Qi'ra (who takes his job in Maul's regime, though specifically not betraying that it was Han who was involved in the crime), and Han realizes that he's been double-crossed by Beckett, whom he kills.  The film ends with Han winning the Millennium Falcon from Lando, after discovering that Lando is cheating in his card games (a fact that will surely be employed in The Rise of Skywalker, right?).

There are two directions I go here.  The first is that it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing the title role other than Harrison Ford, and Ehrenreich in some ways was destined for failure here.  It's not that you can't reinterpret classic characters (though perhaps you shouldn't-hint hint Hollywood), but it's also that Ford is kind of in a different league when it comes to action heroes.  In his prime, Harrison Ford might be the greatest action-adventure star of all time, and his best creations (Han and Indiana Jones) are so completely identified with him that making another actor take them on seems cruel.  Yes, you could claim that eventually Daniel Craig lived up to the likes of Sean Connery, but we had to go through four other actors to get there, and Ford is better as Han/Indiana Jones than even Connery was as Bond.  As a result, Ehrenreich can't find the same sort of roguish charisma here, coasting on his easy handsomeness and charm (which, if you saw Hail, Caesar! is definitely there), but falling short of what we'd expect from someone playing Han Solo.

The reality is, though, if you can take this film outside of the lens of what you'd expect (and I'm not sure that you should, considering they slapped Star Wars on the title and incorporated Han, Chewbacca, and Lando into the franchise), this is still a fun movie.  No, no one is breaking the bank when it comes to great acting (Glover is more doing something inventive than giving a great performance), but it's not like the original Star Wars films didn't also have their problems, and I found this movie really fun.  It's lighter fare than we're used to in this franchise, but it doesn't have the plot holes and questionable visual effects of Rogue One, and there's enough scamp in the work of Glover & Harrelson to make it feel like a light, fluffy ride.  I get why super fans don't love it because it takes a lot of leeway with a classic cinematic character, but as I said-I'm a devoted, but casual fan, and I don't have that same level of attachment.  As a result, I'm going with three stars-it's fun on its own, and considering the box office, that's probably where it stays.