Han Solo was never one of my favorite characters, and I didn't think the actor Alden Ehrenreich looked nothing like a young Harrison Ford, so at first I wasn't too interested in seeing it, despite my love for everything Star Wars. However, I started seeing positive reviews from people who had seen it & were pleasantly surprised.
So, I decided to check it out & I'm glad I did. It was an action-packed "heist"-type film in which Han joins a group of smugglers trying to steal a large quantity of hyperspace fuel to pay back their debts.
Early on, Han escapes his home planet of Corellia and becomes part of the Imperial infantry, where he meets Chewbacca. This was all part of the Han Solo backstory before, and I think it was fleshed-out pretty well.
In my opinion, this was actually more of a "Star Wars" movie than The Last Jedi. There were more exotic planets and locations, both new & familiar aliens, a more coherent & interesting storyline, and less eye-rollingly bad attempts at humor.
The amount of screen time given to Chewie was cool, but hands-down the best aspect of the movie was Donald Glover as young Lando. Even from the first time you hear his voice off-camera, it sounds just like Billy Dee Williams. He had all the mannerisms & inflections down perfectly. Alden Ehrenreich was close enough to the Han we all know to let me suspend my disbelief. However, after seeing a reference to Anthony Ingruber as a young Harrison Ford, I thought that he would have been a far better casting choice. All-in-all the casting was good, and it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the movie too much.
There were some great cameos and easter eggs for Star Wars fans (that I'm not going to spoil here). I'm glad I got to see it in the theater, where the awesome visuals really make an impact. I would definitely recommend it, especially to Star Wars fans like myself. As I said, Han Solo was never a character I really liked, but this movie managed to make his backstory interesting and fun to watch. It follows Rogue One as another well-done Star Wars Story.
The Official Monkey Buddha Rating: 8 out of 10
I also thought it was a fun ride too.
ReplyDeleteI liked it too.
ReplyDeleteI was already primed to like Alden Ehrenreich because he played Ethan in the movie adaptation of 'Beautiful Creatures,' and I really liked his character in the book.