The latest movie in the Star Wars franchise is here, SOLO A Star Wars Story takes us back to the days before Han had the Millennium Falcon and well before the first Star Wars film back in 1977, but is it any good!

Now I have to start off by saying that I’m a big fan of Star Wars, seeing the film back in 1977 was a mind-blowing experience and it was something that I’d never seen the likes of before, now all these years later, we’ve had Star Wars prequels, Star Wars sequels, TV shows and with the start of the first Star Wars Story, Rogue One, we seem to be travelling down the road of “back stories”.

Rogue One for me was an interesting look at how the rebels got the plans that were hidden in the R2 unit in the first movie and it did fit in nicely with the Star Wars legend, not to say that SOLO doesn’t but I just can’t help thinking do we need these backstory movies at all. Am I the only one that like the mysticism about the characters before the ’77 Star Wars!

Director Ron Howard has done a great job with SOLO A Star Wars Story, the action sequences are very well put together and the movie runs along at a good pace, I’m not overly sure if Alden Ehrenreich was right for the role of Han Solo, but then again, that could be down to me just loving Harrison Ford‘s portrayal of SOLO in the original movies.

There are connections with the stories we’ve heard in the movies, we get to see Han performing his famously mentioned Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs! The meeting of Chewie and SOLO wasn’t what I was expecting, it reminded me of Luke’s encounter with the Rancor in Return of the Jedi, but nicely done and we get to see why SOLO can understand Chewie!

Many of the characters in the movie do seem to be those that can be thrown away and forgotten about, they didn’t seem to have any lasting appeal to me, unlike the original trilogy of movies where characters have stuck with many of us over the years, the SOLO characters aren’t those that I could instantly remember.

They do seem more like celebrity names to push the film, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson and Paul Bettany just seemed out of place, but again that’s my point of view. What I did like about the movie was Donald Glover as a young Lando Calrissian, now he certainly played the role well and I did see a lot of Billy Dee Williams coming across in his portrayal of the character, maybe that’s why the next movie in the “Star Wars Story” series is one about Lando, but not sure if we need one, but then again are these prequel/spin-offs leading to something else in the grander scheme of the Star Wars universe!

SOLO: A Star Wars Story in RealD 3D

OK, so the midnight screening that I did of SOLO was in real, something that I do opt for when heading to the cinema and I have to say that it works very nicely in the movie, the early chase scenes had some nice depth to them and also the later action scenes also had some nice moments, if not massively, popping out of the screen, but the added extra effect of something slightly lifted from the cinema screen.

Also adding to the realism of the movie was the sound, this is very nicely mixed on the 7.1 system in the cinema with all the speakers being used to great potential with the use of blaster sounds flying past you, to being engulfed in the middle of explosions and much more.

SOLO: A Star Wars Story is a fun movie, it’s full of action, comedy, a great soundtrack from John Powell (How to Train your Dragon, The Bourne Identity) and let’s also not forget that the film wouldn’t be a Star Wars film without Warwick Davis. It does seem to be more like Chewie: A Star Wars Story, but I’m not complaining.

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