A Bad Review of Solo: A Star Wars Story

Clive "James" Python, 2018-06-07

I've never really been the biggest Star Wars fan out there, so I don't really see anything Star Wars related to be this holy cow that I love so much that I am willing to fall on my knees and suck off George Lucas in the middle of Liverpool, so for me when I saw Solo: A Star Wars Story all I wanted to see was a good movie - how disappointed I would be.

When I went into the movie, I had no idea what it would be like, I'd seen no trailers, no reviews for the movie, nothing, so I was going into the movie with an open mind. First off, I saw it in IMAX®, and that was not a good idea. When watching the movie there was no point where I felt like there was any need to it being in 3D, or even that it was all that impressive, in fact, there were times when I felt bad for it being in 3D, like when the foreground was hard and fuzzy as if I needed glasses. I don't know if it's just me, but I really don't care at all for 3D movies at all, the only 3D movie that I feel like watching would be Mad Max: Fury Road.

From watching the Red Letter Media review of the movie, it would seem that it didn't matter if I picked 3D or normal, as they commented on it by saying that the movie's lighting was really bad a lot of the time, so bad that Jay Bauman (one of the cast on "Half in the Bag") had to look behind him to see if the projector was working as it should.

One strange thing I couldn't help but notice is simply how many British accents there were in the film; it seemed like every other cast member was speaking with a British tone. I'm guessing this is due to it probably being filmed in the UK, or I just guess that in Star Wars the British just took over all of space with tea and bad teeth, said the Brit.

Speaking of British people, one of the worst characters in the movie would have to be L3-37 (is that l33t?) the robot, whose only trait is that she wants equal rights for robots. This was so bad at times that I started to laugh to myself in my seat.

There's even a point in the talking picture where she starts a robotic uprising on a slave planet in something even Douglas Adams or Monty Python would have felt was too unusual, but no, it's here in a Star Wars movie; robots jumping on a keyboard is in the same universe as millions being killed by a giant Death Star. Just amazing.

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The movie's dialogue felt really forced at times, almost like it was taken from a new-wave Christmas play from a school. Early in the movie Han goes up to a desk to join the bad guy's army (I forgot the name of the bad guys in Star Wars, whoops), and when he's at the desk the guy asks him what his last name is and he says that he has none, the part goes something like this;

Man at desk: What's your name?

Han: My name's 'Han'.

Man at desk: 'Han' what? Who are your people?

Han: I don't have any people.

Man at desk: No people, hur? [thinks for a second] Han... Solo.

What? Who gives a single shit about how Han got his last name? Why does it matter so much that the movie took the time in telling us how he got his name? That would be like if in Rambo they took the time in telling us how John Rambo got his middle name of "James", who cares? Just get to the action, this isn't a Wikipedia trivia article, this is a movie about a space robber and what fun things he does.

...

In conclusion, would I recommend "Solo: A Star Wars Story" to anyone? Overall I would say that you should give this one a miss. Is it the worst movie of 2018? I don't think so, some parts of the movie are fun such as the train part, but sadly a lot of it is just dull, by-the-numbers story telling.

I don't think this movie will be remembered in 5, 10 or 15 years. This movie made the crime of not being all that good, but at the same time not being really bad, it's just meh at best.

To end this review I'm going to end it with a quote from Critically Acclaimed's very own William Bibbiani; "Maybe some 'Star Wars' stories don't actually need to be told".


References

I. ASCII art from
http://www.asciiartfarts.com/20081020.html [Internet Archive, archive.is]

II. End quote from William Bibbiani
http://www.criticallyacclaimed.net/2018/05/film-review-solo-star-wars-story-has_22.html [Internet Archive, archive.is]