From Smuggler To Hero It's Solo: A Star Wars Story

Good day my friends! Well, it seems we have come to the end of the month of May. Man it went by fast! Seems just like yesterday that it was the beginning of the month and here we are about to start June on Friday. It seems that the days just go flying by as have the months and the years. But the one thing that we don't realize sometimes is that we are all apart of history right now as it is happening around us. We are witnesses to events that will be talked about long after we are all gone. Speaking of history I was recently looking at the history of where I live and looked at pictures of a grand old movie theatre called the Capitol Theatre. Now every city has had these beautiful old movie theatres with the beautiful architecture that has a touch of old Hollywood class in them. Some have been torn down or were destroyed by fire. While some have been restored and are still in use for future generations to enjoy! Now while I love a lot of the advancements in the movie going experience, from looking at pictures of this theatre, I wish I could have gone to see a movie there as it was sadly torn down in 1979. Seems like we should have been preserving these buildings instead of tearing them down. The same can be often said for movies! We have seen a trend of making sequels or building a franchise trying to out do the last picture to get those big box office dollars. It can often ruin a profitable franchise if you go to the well once too often drying up the well and causing fans to lose interest. Or the exact opposite can happen with people wanting more if you do it right spreading things out making the franchise profitable. This weeks movie review is part of the largest movie franchise ever! One that has a huge fan base. That franchise being George Lucas's baby Star Wars. And this week we saw the release of Disney Studio's latest instalment in the Star Wars franchise that they are now establishing since they bought it. That movie being Solo: A Star Wars Story the movie stars Alden Ehrenreich(Blue Jasmine) in lead role of Han Solo the role made famous by screen legend Harrison Ford. The movie also sports an impressive cast with Emilia Clarke(Me Before You) of Game Of Thrones fame as Qi Ra, Woody Harrelson(The People vs Larry Flint) as Beckett, Donald Glover(Community) as Lando Calrissian and Paul Bettany as Dryden Vos. The movie also boasts a big name director as Ron Howard(A Beautiful Mind) was given the task of making this movie after the previous director left the project. Will this affect the quality of the movie? Is it going to be any good? Is it worth seeing? These are the questions that I will be answering for you as give my review on the latest instalment to the Star Wars family.

In a galaxy, far, far away during the early years of the newly formed Galactic Empire criminal syndicates are running rampant due to all the lawlessness on the mid and outer rims since the fall of the Galactic Republic. On the industrial ship building planet of Corellia a young orphan dreams of escaping the slavery he has been subject to by Lady Proxima the leader of the White Worms gang. That orphan is Han(Ehrenreich) and he does things his own way, he's outspoken and impulsive. With a small vile of the valuable hyper fuel known as coaxium he plans to buy his way off the planet with his girlfriend Qi'Ra(Clarke) escaping from the slavery of Lady Proxima. But as they are about to be free Qi'Ra is captured while Han escapes. To avoid being caught by the Imperial Troops for not having any documentation for travel. Han decides to join the Imperial army as a pilot to get off Corellia. But as he has no family the recruiting officer gives him the name Solo as his surname. His stubbornness gets him kicked out of the flight program and into the infantry. It is there that three years later he meets Beckett(Harrelson) and his crew who are planning to heist a ship for a bigger job posing as Imperial officers. Han wanting to leave the army so he can back to Corellia to save Qi'Ra tells Beckett that he can help them if they take him with them. Beckett refuses and has Han thrown in a bit to be fed to the beast which turns out to be his life long buddy Chewbacca. After finding out Han can speak his language Chewy helps Han escape. The two friends track down Beckett who takes them aboard as help for the job of stealing a large supply of coaxium for the criminal organization known as Crimson Dawn. But the job goes wrong when a gang of Cloud Riders tries to take it from them leading to two of Becketts crew being killed and Han dumping the shipment destroying it! Informed of who they were working for by Beckett, Han and Chewy go along with Beckett to meet their employer Dryden Voss(Bettany) a big player in Crimson Dawn. It is aboard Voss's ship that he is reunited with his long lost love Qi'Ra who now works for Voss as his chief lieutenant. Old feelings return but the reunion is short lived as Dryden Voss wishes to talk to Beckett, Han, Chewy and Qi'Ra. It is in the meeting that Voss wants the three smugglers to make up for the lost shipment by replacing it with another immediately. With no way to find a new shipment Han suggests going to the spice mines of Kessel to obtain the coaxium in its raw form and than transporting it to an unoccupied Imperial planet Savareen to be processed. To do this they will need a fats ship and someone to pilot it. Upon Qi'Ra's suggestion they find Lando Calrissian(Glover) who owns the fastest ship in the galaxy the Millennium Falcon to help with this task. With the clock ticking down the group of smugglers head to Kessel and steal the coaxium and make thier way to Savareen. It is there that Han learns the truth about his employers, the Cloud Riders and who to trust and must decide if he wants to be a good man or a rich one!

So what I gave you above is just a brief taste of the movie, if you could call my extremely long paragraph brief,hahaha! But I didn't know any other way to best describe the plot line here! But that aside let's get straight to it here! This movie was given mixed reviews from other reviewers so I was a little skeptical when going to see this movie. As the case is when a movie that has mixed reviews comes out I try and keep an open mind. This movie wasn't that bad as others were making it out to be. It had a good story, was exciting with lots of action and some pretty good dialogue. It also had a pretty impressive cast list to boot! The performances were good with Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover's performances standing out here! The relationship between Qi'Ra and Han didn't seem too believable with a great performance by Emelia Clarke but it seemed to me that Alden Ehrenreich's performance wasn't overly strong. This movie moved along nicely and didn't seem to drag at all. That being said it was not one of the strongest of the Star Wars movies but it was enjoyable. At least it was better than Phantom Menace! I did enjoy the movie though and it did explain a bit about the lovable scoundrel smuggler that we all know and love. Like how he first met Chewbacca and his famed Kessel run. This is why I am going to be giving Solo: A Star Wars Story a 7.3 on The Justin Scale Of Movies and putting it on my Pick-It List of movies to check out at the theatre. It was a nice little picture and not as bad as people are saying. Maybe it was just too much too soon after Last Jedi came out this year. It is time to call it a wrap here on my latest movie review! As always please go out and support the hard working people who work on the movies and see a movie in the theatre and don't illegally download! Time for me to go here friends, remember to keep that popcorn freshly popped and save me a good seat because I will be seeing you again at the movies!