By Brett Blake
Breanne Brennan joins me for another of our annual traditions: analysis and speculation about the Summer Movie Season! Now, the release of AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR in late April left most of May without much of real significance, so we kick off our discussion with SOLO (which, by the time this episode is posted, I have seen, and my review is HERE), then we work through the months of June, July, and August and attempt to at least touch all the major movies headed our way! If you’re interested in following along, here’s the lineup of films we cover in our discussion. MAY - Solo: A Star Wars Story (25th) JUNE - Ocean’s 8 (8th) - Hereditary (8th) - Incredibles 2 (15th) - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (22nd) - Sicario: Day of the Soldado (29th) JULY - Ant-Man and the Wasp (6th) - Skyscraper (13th) - The Equalizer 2 (20th) - Mama Mia: Here We Go Again! (20th) - Mission: Impossible - Fallout (27th) AUGUST - Christopher Robin (3rd) - The Meg (10th)
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By Brett Blake SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY is a fun movie. I’ll elaborate on that a bit, of course, but that’s really the most important thing to state right up front. Despite nearly catastrophic production difficulties - the original directors were replaced roughly 80% of the way through the shoot, then Ron Howard was called upon to step in to finish (and reshoot what had already been shot) - and the almost unthinkable idea of recasting an iconic character like Han Solo, somehow the magic of the movies was able to conjure up a thoroughly entertaining blockbuster, and one that recaptures some of that classic STAR WARS feel after the last release in the series took things to a more esoteric - and divisive - place. Set roughly a decade before the events of the original STAR WARS film, SOLO finds young Han (Alden Ehrenreich) a street-smart, ambitious young man looking for a chance to make his way in the galaxy. When fate conspires to put him in the orbit of a veteran smuggler named Beckett (Woody Harrelson), Han sees his opening and takes it, embarking on a life in the criminal underworld, meeting some familiar faces along the way, such as his soon-to-be partner Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), and charming gambler Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover). Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), a face from Han’s past, complicates matters as this rag-tag team must pull off a daring heist... or die trying. First and foremost, SOLO is an adventure tale, and a fairly rollicking, thrilling one, at that. Tonally, this is very much what one would expect from a STAR WARS movie: exciting chases with a little bit of a swashbuckling flavor, engaging and distinct characters bouncing off of each other in playful and/or tense ways, and a literal galaxy of wonderful environments and creatures. All of that is here in spades, and credit to director Ron Howard for coming into a difficult situation and not letting any of that behind-the-scenes conflict bleed over onto the screen. I think a case could also be made that SOLO is the most visually distinct and textured film in the series thus far, courtesy of Bradford Young’s very atmospheric lighting. As the title character, Alden Ehrenreich has the unenviable task of stepping into the shoes of Harrison Ford’s iconic role, and the good news that Ehrenreich is great. His Han is a little looser, a little funnier, a little less roguish, and a lot more wide-eyed, but he’s got charisma to spare and he presents an extremely likable energy. I don’t know that he really evokes what I think of as Han Solo (though, to be fair, some of that is surely by design at the script level), but as the lead of a science fiction fantasy adventure, he's terrific. He’s backed by a great supporting cast, out of which Woody Harrelson arguably shines the brightest (even if he’s kind of just coasting on his standard presence), though special mention should go to Joonas Suotamo’s Chewbacca, who really gets to take the spotlight here probably more than in any other movie in which Chewie has appeared. On a script level, SOLO is a bit flawed in a conceptual way. The screenplay (by STAR WARS vet Lawrence Kasdan and his son, Jonathan Kasdan) is ultimately telling a very simple and, most disappointingly, predictable - and somewhat cliched - story. We learn the answers to questions we never asked for, and that narrative takes turns that anybody who has ever seen a heist movie before will surely be able to see coming from a long way off. To a certain extent, the story feels like a series of boxes being checked; Han meets Chewie? Check. Han meets Lando? Check. Han comes into contact with the Millennium Falcon? Check. Han is entangled in the criminal underworld and becomes a smuggler? Check. There are unfortunately few genuine surprises to be found in SOLO, and that’s not to suggest that every movie needs to be packed with them, but when a film seemingly wants the audience to be surprised - as SOLO does - it seems more than fair to take issue with the obvious nature of most of the story beats. One unequivocal highlight of the movie is the score, courtesy of John Powell... with an assist from the master of STAR WARS music himself, John Williams; Williams contributes a new pair of themes which Powell fully integrates into his score, alongside new themes from Powell and classic Williams themes from previous STAR WARS movies where appropriate. The two new Williams themes, representing two aspects of Han Solo’s character, are terrific, and Powell - setting aside any pride or vanity - does marvelous things with these melodies, putting them through their paces in a variety of settings, arrangements, and tonal variations. Powell’s own new themes are strong, too, and there’s many of them, which is the way it should be in a STAR WARS score. The dramatic and comedic underscore is quirky, too, and the action scoring is nothing less than stellar, complete with rousing brass fanfares throughout. This is 2018’s best score so far. There is one issue that SOLO really brings to the forefront, for both good and ill: STAR WARS is not an event anymore. A new STAR WARS film once felt like a gigantic cultural moment because the years between installments often resulted in a substantial gap, allowing for hunger and anticipation to build. Now, SOLO is the fourth film to be released in the series in the last two-and-a-half years. STAR WARS has essentially now become just another blockbuster franchise, and SOLO is just another movie. While that does lessen some of the “special” quality that STAR WARS used to have, on the other side of the coin, it allows SOLO to exist without having to carry the weight of needing to be some kind of transcendent experience; for some, THE LAST JEDI was saddled with expectations along those lines to the point that it sank the movie for a not-inconsiderable number of viewers. SOLO carries none of that baggage. It knows what it’s trying to do, which is provide a fun adventure romp through the galaxy, and on that level, it’s a success. I had a great time with it. |
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