Solo: A Star Wars Story review: No light sabres or Darth Vader, but Han Solo provides rip-roaring fare

Ron Howard, 135 mins, starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Joonas Suotamo, Jon Favreau (voice)

This review may contain spoilers

In normal circumstances, we would have to wait until Christmas for a new Star Wars movie but this one is arriving in early summer, barely five months after The Last Jedi.

It’s a prequel, one of Hollywood’s so-called “origin” stories in which we meet familiar characters at an earlier stage of their lives. The movie (which premiered on Tuesday evening in the unlikely setting of the Cannes Film Festival) is the usual rip-roaring fare.

We’re still in a galaxy far, far away. The familiar music blasts away on the soundtrack. The youthful Han Solo (whose early life is chronicled in exhilarating fashion here) is like a galactic version of the Artful Dodger crossed with a young cowboy.

He has been stealing and scamming on the mean streets of Corellia since he was a 10-year-old kid. He dreams of becoming the best pilot in the universe. He may be a bit of a reckless rascal but at least he shows some defiance.

We are in a “lawless time” with crime syndicates running amok in some parts of the galaxy while the fascistic Empire keeps everybody under its yoke in others.

The film begins in tremendous fashion with action and romance shoe-horned into the very first minute. We see Han have his first kiss with Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones) moments after the movie has started. We get a thermal detonation and a frantic chase as the young lovers plot their escape. Only one of them makes it.

This was a famously troubled production. Its original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (the spoofmeisters behind the Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street) were replaced, presumably because they were in danger of crossing the line between affectionate homage and straight-out parody. Ron Howard, Hollywood’s ultimate safe pair of hands, replaced them. He has done a commendable job. The new film plays like a galactic western. It interweaves the action, humour, romance and nostalgia in very deft fashion.

We are shown the moment that Han first encounters his hairy sidekick, Chewbacca. They meet in a muddy dungeon and immediately strike up a rapport. It helps that Han knows a few words of Wookie. We also learn just how Han got his surname and discover Chewbacca’s age.

The ubiquitous Woody Harrelson is the outlaw, Tobias Beckett, Three years after Han’s escape, Tobias and his sidekick Val (Thandie Newton) reluctantly recruit the young hero in their posse of space outlaws. Han’s plan is to stay with them for one mission, earn enough money to buy himself a spaceship, and then return to Corellia to rescue Qi’ra, if she is still there.

Solo is played by Alden Ehrenreich, the immensely likeable young actor who starred as the fresh-faced Audie Murphy-like movie cowboy in the Coen brothers’ Hollywood satire, Hail, Caesar. In truth, Ehrenreich is quite different from Harrison Ford in the same role. He’s smaller and less intense.

Thankfully, he shares Ford’s deadpan humour and folksy, all-American quality. He never gets flustered and always has a wisecrack, even at the most precarious moments. He’ll grin cheerfully after the space ship he is piloting is very nearly blown to smithereens and pretend he was in control all along. It’s an engaging performance that strikes just the right balance of humour and heroism.

Tobias and his motley crew of outlaws are in a ship piloted by Rio Durant (voiced by Jon Favreau), a creature with several arms and an impish sense of humour. Together, they try to steal a consignment of coaxium from a fast-moving train that is speeding across an icy mountain range. This is radioactive material which is unstable but immensely powerful. Whoever has it can control the universe.

After a pulsating first half hour, the film loses its momentum slightly. We meet card sharp and mercenary Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), who has a spaceship that Han wants to use. We are also introduced to the main villain of the piece, Dryden Vos (Paul Betanny), a sleek, cocktail-quaffing sophisticate who has red streaks running down his face. Whenever he loses his temper, these streaks begin to pulse and he becomes demonic and very violent.

Dryden may seem immensely powerful but he himself is in thrall to the Crimson Dawn, one of the universe’s most lethal crime syndicates. In other words, the plotting is the familiar hokum. We get spaghetti western-style stand-offs, yet more sub-plots about the coaxium and the mandatory scene in which Han pilots a ship through what appears to be a black hole with a giant octopus in it. (This is the ‘maelstrom.')

We can tell that the film is bound eventually to turn into a tale of plucky rebels taking on oppressive overlords. Han is warned early on by Woody Harrelson’s Tobias to “assume everyone will betray you… then you won’t be disappointed". It’s not advice that Han can follow. His real secret is that despite his outlaw posturing, he’s the “good guy” who will always put justice above self-interest.

There is nothing much here that will surprise Star Wars fans but there is nothing that should disappoint them either. No light sabres are on display and nor is there any sign of Darth Vader but Solo: A Star Wars Story delivers exactly what you want and expect from a movie about the young Han Solo.

'Solo: A Star Wars Story' is in UK cinemas from 25 May

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