Solo: a review

In spite of the fact that I understand quite well the idea that you don't want to give money to people who hate you, I still really have a lot of hope for the Star Wars franchise.  Even after the big load of trash that was The Force Awakens and the dumpster fire that was The Last Jedi, because after all, Rogue One was a decent flick, and the Clone Wars series was pretty darn good, etc.

So, I'll make sure that I see these movies at matinee prices and I'll often avoid the opening weekend entirely, which is a huge part of the metric for success.  On this front, the news is all about how Solo is underperforming, and of course, the clueless (so badly so that it seems deliberate) Hollywood Press and others are talking about things like "Star Wars fatigue" and whatnot.  How it doesn't occur to anyone at all that the combination of the disaster that was The Last Jedi combined with the poorly received comments from co-writer Kasdan about Lando's sexuality are really just pissing off the audience is beyond me.

That said, with The Last Jedi there was a trajectory over time of extremely high critics score and a falling audience score (91% vs half that at 46%) but the opposite has been true for Solo; it's had a modest critics score that has hovered right around 70%, moving a point or two up and down as more reviews have come in, but with a rising audience score; starting in the lower 50s at the beginning of the weekend and coming up to just over 60% right now.  Even that isn't very fair; I think there's a lot of butthurt about how terrible The Last Jedi was still coloring the score.  As I told my older, married son last night on the phone (who won't be seeing the movie until today, with one of his friends) I thought this movie was as good as Rogue One, but more fun because it's not so depressing.

Now, that hardly means that it was perfect of course.  The character of Han Solo felt more like a different character who just happened to meet a Wookie named Chewbacca and win a starship called the Millennium Falcon in a card game, and make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.  He was a likable enough protagonist character, but it was often hard to think of him as Han Solo.  Lando was kind of sleazy, which misses the point that he, like Solo himself, is supposed to have that heart of gold underneath it all that justifies his change of heart in the original trilogy to becoming a heroic character.  All in all, the writers really kind of missed the boat with getting the characterizations right.

Lando's radical feminist droid was, luckily, not meant to be taken too seriously, because "she" was seriously annoying.  Although, for the most part, everyone treated "her" like she was seriously annoying.  The fact that she even had thunder thighs and ugly wide hips was kinda funny, but still, "she" was an element that bordered on seriously uncomfortable at times.  Luckily, "she" didn't last very long.  There was also a really cheesy introduction of a really cheesy Diversity™ Inc. version of the prototype of the Rebel Alliance that is kind of obnoxious with its Neo-liberal World Order virtue-signaling; it literally ruined a part of the movie, although it was a small part, so it didn't do too much damage to the overall impression.

Other than that, there was a lot of interesting little fan-service call-backs, like somebody wearing the same outfit that Lando wore when he infiltrated Jabba's palace to rescue Han, Han actually unambiguously shooting first, a reference to Teräs Käsi (which was a kinda funny Easter egg that I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who got in my family.  I've actually played that game, albeit briefly.)  There's also a reference to a major plot point from The Clone Wars, although I won't spoil it for you here by telling you what it is.

But those were the bad. (Well, to be fair, the Easter eggs aren't necessarily bad, but I doubt that they'll age well on repeated viewings.) The good is that the movie is pretty good as a space heist movie.  The characters are interesting and have, mostly, pretty decent chemistry with each other.  It moved; it had good pacing, and the plot wasn't ridiculous.  It was mostly even, dare I say it, exciting.

Now, I need to see it again.  Maybe on a second viewing, the Easter eggs will have me rolling my eyes more and other things will start to bother me.  But mostly, I'm finding that I haven't enjoyed the Star Wars franchise without being actively annoyed by it this much in a long time.  The movie has my qualified recommendation, with only minor caveat emptors.  I'll almost certainly buy this one on blu-ray when it's available.