I loved Solo: A Star Wars Story. Directed by the legendary
Ron Howard (who put his brother Clint in it, as always), it masterfully created for us
the characters of Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian and the relationship Solo
shared with each.
I particularly enjoyed Donald Glover as Lando. He was Lando, effortlessly
reproducing Billy Dee Williams' verbal swagger as if Billy Dee borrowed it from him.
I don't know why Solo hasn't done better in the box office. Perhaps it's because
Alden Ehrenreich does not resemble Harrison Ford. It's kind of the elephant in the
room. I liked Ehrenreich as Han, but it just seemed to me there was something missing...
his handsome face just didn't plausibly resemble a young Ford.
Still, that shouldn't stop you from seeing and enjoying this movie, because there is
much to love about it. Ron Howard takes us through a few chapters in Solo's early life and
matures him, with great detail, into the character we've known for forty years. He does
this in overt and in subtle ways. The astute audience member is constantly surrounded by
the overt ways, with lots and lots of lines in that movie that you've heard before.
Perhaps the best example of a subtle way was his standoff with Beckett near the end of
the film. No spoilers here, but there's a message in that scene that plays to some furor
created in a re-release of Episode IV. (Hint: I'm talking about the Cantina scene.)
There's also a huge surprise that reaches back to the time of Episode I that seems
to intimate there's more to Solo: A Star Wars Story.
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