Solo

This rugged but stylish mess of a movie breaks new ground and soars away from the franchise just as much as it relies upon it and clings to it like a needy child. 

With Solo, you get a story with more plot holes than a gravitational vacuum full of cheese graters, but the latest LucasFilm instalment is still a lot of rambunctious, rollicking fun and essentially feels like an American Hustle or Oceans film plonked into the Star Wars universe. You know the drill: they’re in it for just one last job before they get out for good, everyone is trying to grift everyone else and, finally, the wool is lifted from your eyes and you see that, hey whaddya know? it was all some ingenious ruse. That said, the light-heartedness of the flick is a refreshing cool shower after the sweaty, infernal existential angst, betrayal and hubris of The Last Jedi. Director Ron Howard brings some stunning visuals to the game, but fails to bring enough style or tone to really gel the many crumbs of storyline together or leave much of a lasting impression.   

There are some amazing in-jokes for the mega fans, such as Solo trying to do the 90-degree-sideways-flight-through-a-thin-gap routine only for the ship to get stuck halfway through and for him to abandon ship. However, the jokes get a little out of hand; as with Guardians of the Galaxy, the script consists almost entirely of a string of one-liners, or a one line of one-liners that leave little room for the emotional scenes to be shoe-horned in. Obviously, you couldn’t have Solo without his cool quips, but some of the jibes suffer from erectile dysfunction and fail to perform. One particular macho exchange between Calrissian and Solo: “Why don’t you quit whilst you’re ahead?”, “Why don’t you quit whilst you’re behind, haha” flopped rather spectacularly.  

Alden Ehrenreich is a bit of a mixed bag as Harrison Ford’s stand-in. For one thing, he looks older than Ford did in the original trilogy, despite Solo being a prequel. He also smacks less of the rugged rogue than the first edition Han, often taking the arrogance to the N’th degree whilst missing out on the vulnerability and dark, unsettling broodiness that Ford had turned into a genuine art form. Ehrenreich’s eyebrow game is more Jack Nicholson and his machismo is more Bond-esque and, for a rebel and a rogue, he is just too darned predictable and too brazenly noble given that he’s supposed to be treading the moral line like a tightrope. Basically, what you get for your buck is two parts chiselled, hunky jock and only one measure of George Lucas’ iconic brooding gunslinger.

Donald Glover fits the part of Lando Calrissian like a custom-fit suede glove. Sassy, suave and dripping with smarm, you can’t shake the feeling that his entire acting career has been ramping up to this role. Complete with smart-Alec, passionate android liberation activist, co-pilot (and lover?) L3-37 and enough snug silk capes to make the Justice League cream their pants, Glover is here to charm your galactic socks off.