‘Solo’ delivers with appropriate tone

Star Wars anthology entertains, adds to universe

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Fair use from Walt Disney Studios

Ndunzi Kunsunga

The recent addition to the Star Wars universe, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” leaves the audience with a reminiscent of when the eponymous character first appeared on screen in “A New Hope,” that sentiment being ‘That was cool.’

“Solo: A Star Wars Story” tells the story of Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) before the events of the original trilogy, showing the origins of his relationship with characters such as Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover). The audience is  shown Han Solo’s rise from a common street-rat to pilot of the iconic Millenium Falcon. In the movie  Solo attempts to return to his loved one Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) and escape with her to a life of peace while being indoctrinated into the underground of the Star Wars world.

Overall, the acting in the movie was wonderful. Ehrenreich’s Han Solo felt like a very accurate and faithful portrayal of the Solo from the original trilogy. While the two ‘Han Solos’ aren’t exactly the same, the character progression and acting made the implied transition between movies very possible. This Solo, while being a bit more naive and emotional, as he should be due his youth, he is still just as cool, confident and cocky. Glover’s Lando Calrissian gives the character a depth not seen with in the original trilogies but much appreciated. The interactions between him and Ehrenreich’s Solo were great and every scene with Donald Glover involved was enjoyable. Other standouts include Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra and Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett, another new character who serves as Solo’s own twisted Kenobi. Essentially the leading cast were all at the top of their game.

While typical Star Wars movies are space operas with space samurais fighting pseudo religious battles over good and evil, Solo breaks the mold as space western with quite literal space cowboys, space mobsters and pirates. As such, this film firmly fit the Solo tone of the ethereal realm of cool. Sadly, the film doesn’t entirely go into the realm of keeping all characters morally ambivalent, but aside from that the movie is as interesting and cool as the iconic characters. The effects were also terrific in standard Star Wars fashion, keeping the world immersive.

However, the movie is no instant classic. It’s certainly a good movie, but not much can be said for it other than the movie being ‘cool.’ Solo lives up to the legacy set up by the original character but doesn’t add much to the character nor the universe aside for a few familiar faces. The movie inspires little more emotion or thoughts than ‘cool.’ Nonetheless, Solo was without a doubt an entertaining and overall good film.