Solo: A Star Wars Story

A little trepidation escorted us into screen 6 at Morley's Event cinemas for a morning showing of Solo: A Star Wars Story. This was mainly down to the grizzles I'd been hearing about on-set troubles and mis-casting and stuff like that. Also Ron Howard had been hired to 'fire-fight' the film into shape and finish on time. Safe pair of hands is old Ronnie but not the edgiest. To possibly perpetuate a rumour, it appears the previous directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (of Lego Movie and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs fame), couldn't quite handle such a behemoth as Solo. No matter, as this turned out to be perhaps my third favourite Ron Howard film (not counting the ones he's acted in, like The Music Man), after Frost/Nixon and Willow.

A specific concern of the grizzlers seemed to be the casting of Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo, first seen getting in and out of trouble on the industrial planet of Corellia. Rest easy, he's fine in this. Of course, he's no Ford but he handles his tasks with charm and vulnerability. He even pulls off a Ford-ish wink as he tries to mollify Emilia Clarke's Qi'ra.

The main theme of Solo is trust and its counterpoint, betrayal. These aren't played as heavy-handedly as they might have been under the tutelage of, say, Denis Villeneuve or early Scorsese. Woody Harrelson's smuggler mentor Beckett tells Han to "trust no-one" but most of us will be safe in the knowledge that the future will be fine for Han until....well, let's leave it at that. An enduring trust that's shown here in its embryonic form is the meeting of Han and Chewie. Let's face it, this is what most people came to see and it doesn't disappoint. Considered a deserter, Han is thrown into a muddy pit with 'the beast', conjuring up memories of the trapdoor to the Rancor in Jabba's palace. Luckily, Han can speak a bit of Wookiee and so it begins.

Regarding the timeline - this seems to take place 10-12 years before A New Hope and a few years after the end of Revenge of the Sith so presumably Vader is knocking around somewhere. Though that would make Vader roughly the same age as Solo in A New Hope. Hmmm. This all feeds in to another issue. Oddly, (Darth) Maul is head of crime syndicate, Crimson Dawn but he got split asunder in The Phantom Menace by Renton. Survived he seems to have.

Some other lovely touches include Han telling Chewie, "I've got a really good feeling about this" while attempting the Kessel run. Chewie ripping off a guard's arms on the mining planet of Kessel (starting point of said famous run). The slow, steady birth of the rebellion in the form of Enfys Nest and her raiders. And most interestingly (and subtly) Han shooting Beckett - FIRST!

Ultimately, I can't really understand why some people have taken against this film. It's harmless fun, exciting and occasionally endearing. MWRGHMRRAAWW. That's yes.

See also:

The Coen Brothers' Hail Caeser (2016), mainly for a scene between Alden Ehrenreich and Ralph Fiennes. And the aforementioned Ron Howard films, Willow (1988) and Frost/Nixon (2008).

SPOILERS WITHIN PODCAST!!

Listen to "Solo: A Star Wars Story" on Spreaker.

Deadpool 2

After Deadpool had raked in just under $800 million worldwide two years ago, it made perfect sense to have a crack at a sequel. And I think Deadpool 2 is slightly better than the original. Maybe this is because there's less of the TJ Miller riffing, which was intermittently solid but overcooked. In this one, they dialled it back quite a bit, as they did the old blind lady and the taxi driver. All fine characters, and this time, used sparingly.

Another reason is the identity of the antagonist. At first, it seems to be Josh Brolin's Cable but then, for story reasons, it kind of morphs into circumstance, I guess. There are several moments when our potty-mouthed hero struggles to keep all the pieces together (metaphorically and literally). In fact, Pool begins to fight more against himself and his 'unkillability', which prevents him from [SPOILER - REDACTED], so you might say Ryan Reynolds' Wade Wilson is the pro/an-tagonist. The direction also seems more assured in this second outing, with David Leitch taking over from Tim Miller, and maybe all relevant parties were more comfortable, knowing this film would probably 'wash its face' (its takings are running just shy of $620 million worldwide as I write).

Now this was a chuckle-fuck all the way through but specific mention must go to the introduction of the X-force. Reynolds said on the Empire podcast that the whole section was really just a way of linking the scene where Cable beats DP to a pulp to the one where he goes after the convoy. So the best sequence in the film was intended as a narrative bridge and Reynolds is right when he says nothing would be lost story-wise if you removed the whole chunk. A nice bit of fortuitousness there.

Some of the supporting cast are worth mentioning. Brolin as Cable is suitably austere and hardened and he's made a bit of a thing out of playing psychotic killers - Thanos, Bush, now Cable. The 'not very cinematic' Domino sequence, which showcases her luck superpower, is another treat. Zazie Beetz plays this just right. She's a step up from NegaSonic Teenage Hedgehog. Ricky Baker Julian Dennison's Firefist has some nice moments, especially his prison wallet. There are also a few neat cameos, which are handily spoiled in the podcast below.

[THE FOLLOWING PARAGARPH HAS ONE WHOPPING SPOILER IN IT - STOP HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM]

One of the lesser points of Deadpool 2 is that even though they step outside the box in many ways - fourth wall breaking, meta gags about other films (Wolverine has some legs), great swearing and unusual deaths - they also stick to some of the tropes of your run-of-the-mill Hollywood fare. 'Fridging' being a prime example. This is, roughly speaking, killing a female character to enable the male hero to become motivated enough to drive the plot forward. Though this was probably unaviodable here, as it served to drive DP's suicidal mania, it's still an unfortunate cliche.

See also:

Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003) for a similar scene to one at the start of Deadpool 2 and maybe even Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) for bags of slow-motion bloodshed.

SPOILERS WITHIN PODCAST!!

Listen to "Deadpool 2" on Spreaker.