Movies: Solo: A Star Wars Story

In my eyes, the House of Mouse's takeover of the "Star Wars" franchise has had decidedly mixed results. The new sequel trilogy started off strong, but then made the first six movies irrelevant by the second act of "The Force Awakens." The spin-off movie "Rogue One" was a pretty decent action flick, but it felt like a throwaway since it didn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

That said, all of the new movies have been profitable except for "Solo: A Star Wars Story." The movie had a famously troubled production, and it tanked when it was released six months after "The Last Jedi"...did it deserve to?



Seeing "Solo" on Netflix probably helped, because this is a small stakes heist film about the origin of everyone's favorite space rogue, Han Solo. It's more like a TV series than a big-budget action piece - while the effects were good enough to get nominated for an Oscar, they're more like juiced-up versions of a "Firefly" episode than the grand battles we're used to seeing in "Star Wars."

What saves the movie is the game cast (Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover are excellent as Han and Lando), a straightforward script that has a lot of humor, and workmanlike direction from Ron Howard. There's a certain freedom that comes with working on a story that doesn't have to connect to a 9-film arc, and Howard and Co. milk it for all it's worth.

Rating: 7/10