I wrote a couple of days ago I'd wait to see Solo, A Star Wars Story. I changed my mind and the DrsC saw it this afternoon. Not bad, it's decent entertainment, with plenty of fan service in the form of references to happenings in other SW films. Warning: spoilers ahead.
My strongest impression was that Alden Ehrenreich looks so much like a young Robert Wagner he could easily pass for his son, or even clone. He has the identical amused, knowing smirk for which Wagner is well-known.
I found this resemblance distracting. I cannot imagine Ehrenreich could morph into the young Harrison Ford who meets Luke Skywalker in the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine.
I enjoy Ford's acting but see him as rugged rather than cute, which both Wagner and Ehrenreich are. This disjuncture aside, Ehrenreich's acting was definitely okay.
My second impression, one I don't see echoed in other reviews, is that much of the film is derivative. Four examples will make the point. The Solo train heist looks like a more elaborate version of one in a Firefly TV episode.
Near the end it becomes crucial that the "coaxium" Solo's been chasing gets into the fuel tank of his Millennium Falcon. This very scene was burlesqued 30 years ago in 1987's Space Balls, with John Candy pouring a bottle of "schwartz" into the Winnebago spaceship's emergency fuel supply. Homage to a parody? Give me a break.
Lady Proxima, a pool-living snake-like monster runs a group of kid thieves on Corellia. The monster resembles one or more baddies in 20 year old Buffy, the Vampire Slayer episodes.
And the desert nomads living on the planet with an abandoned coaxium refinery look like refugees from the first Stargate film. It's hard to think of a SF or fantasy film from which nothing was "borrowed."
My third complaint is that the film was too long, after 100 minutes I began to wish the film would wrap it up. It runs long at 135 minutes, according to Wikipedia.
Enough complaints, what did I like? Emilia Clarke who plays Han's love interest looks more attractive here as a brunette, than she did as a blond on Game of Thrones. Woody Harrelson plays a semi-lovable rogue here, similar to the one he played in Hunger Games, it's a character he does well. And Lando's robot girlfriend is fun, if confusing. Finally, unlike Rogue 1, the plot of this film held together and made sense in terms of the overall SW story arc.
