By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Joonas Suotamo, Jon Favreau, Linda Hunt, Clint Howard, Warwick Davis, Erin Kellyman and Paul Bettany.
Rating: Very Good.
Academy Award Winning Director Ron Howard brings “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and despite of the flaws the film has, which I will get to those briefly I was very satisfied with the film.
The story centers in young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) a young smuggler and thief from the planet of Corelia that has the aspiration of becoming a pilot.
In his journey to reach his goal he will meet Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) who will become his mentor and will form a special friendship with Chewbacca The Wookie (Joonas Suotamo).
In one of his missions Solo is asked with Tobias and Chewbacca to steal a shipment of hyperfuel coaxium for Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) the leader of the Crimson Dawn criminal syndicate.
Besides being joined by Tobias Beckett and Chewbacca, Han Solo will be joined by his partner and girlfriend from Corelia Qi´ra (Emilia Clarke) and they will ask for the help of Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) a smuggler and gambler who happens to fly The Millenium Falcon and eventually will form a close friendship with Han Solo.
“Solo: A Star Wars Movie” for people who are familiar with the films and it´s character you are going to find things that you were expecting and like I mentioned before this film has a lot of flaws, one of them being too predictable.
Both Lawrence Kasdan (writer of “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of The Jedi”) with his son Jonathan wrote a screenplay that I thought was too obvious and I was surprised since Lawrence Kasdan is a fantastic writer and I from that point I was expecting this film to be very good.
The relationship between Han Solo and Qi´ra was one of the best moments in this film and I was expecting both Lawrence and Jonathan to get more deep here and by moments Solo was being annoying instead of charming and cynical, which we saw in this characters for many years.
Yes, we do see a cynical side and I like the fact of how we know the origins of how he build his friendship with Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian which does work in this film and it´s very funny how the situation in both meetings with this characters take place.
Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo was very good and he brought his wit and charm to portray this iconic character; so as Donald Glover, who did an outstanding job and he could be one of my favorite characters in this for his portrayal.
Donald Glover is one of the best young talents that are in this industry and there is no doubt in my mind that he is going to be one of the most predominant performers in Hollywood.
Ron Howard´s directing was very different of the type of films he normally directs which involve colorful characters. Here was not the case and he told the story of a character who does a dark background and did a very good job, specially in directing performances which is one Howard´s trademarks in his films.
The cinematography by Bradford Young was impressive and in terms of production value the film was very good and is filled with amazing action sequences and visual effects, which I was expecting since all the Star Wars films have this and has become a trademark.
Despite of the flaws in story I was very satisfied with the film. Coming from someone who grew up with Star Wars, honestly I was not expecting anything from it but at the end of the day the film does entertain.
That being said I recommend this film. There are going to be a lot of opinions, specially from Star Wars fans who might love or hate but still I do think is a film that surves it´s purpose, which is to entertain.