writ. by Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan
One of the key themes of December's Star Wars: The Last Jedi was that obsessing over the past is futile, and yet, Disney has seen fit to fill the gaps in its yearly release schedule not with intriguing new stories from disparate corners of the galaxy, but with yet more prequels which tell stories we already know about. Solo: A Star Wars Story, despite having its fair share of new characters, is a worse offender than Rogue One, as it insistently strings together explanations for nearly every aspect of Han Solo's persona in the original trilogy, while including at least a minor reference to every single piece of backstory which had been mentioned in those original movies.
That doesn't leave Solo with much room to take significant risks within its own story, so thankfully it instead takes on an upbeat tone and a breezy pace, diverging from grim foreboding of Rogue One in favour of a lightweight caper, albeit at the expense of the novelty and unique style of the earlier film. But if Solo contains few of Rogue One's strengths, it also fixes its primary weakness with a far more memorable cast of characters, and the action at the very least remains imaginative and exciting even if it's far less stylish than other recent Star Wars entries. Solo is the most disposable of the recent Star Wars films, but as a fluffy summer blockbuster, it is more than satisfactory.
