Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Well, well, well, at last, a decent
Star Wars movie. A film about the earlier life of Han Solo, a film that sticks to pre-defined parameters from the characters time line such as the Kessell Run, his friendship with Lando Calrissian, winning the Millennium Falcon and certainly not least his great friendship with the Wookie, Chewbacca.
Certainly new characters are brought into proceedings but they are well rounded and there for a purpose rather than simply ticking diversity boxes. Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Paul Bettany, Jon Favreau and Thandie Newton, all brought something to their roles. In fact the only annoying character was Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37, Lando's droid companion, thankfully she didn't last too long before getting destroyed.
Alden Ehrenreich was excellent as the younger Han Solo, likable, slightly cocky and displayed some of the same physical traits as Harrison Ford in both stance and head movements without seemingly trying to imitate the actor in question.
The story is straightforward, completely steers clear of anything to do with The Force
, and quickly becomes a rollicking sci-fi adventure with some terrific action set pieces and one or two crowd (fan boy) pleasing surprises.
I really enjoyed
Solo. It lacked any of the pretentiousness of say,
The Last Jedi, and ended up a throughly enjoyable film that shows no sign of it's reportedly very troubled production.