Release Date: May 10, 2018

Director: Ron Howard

Starring: Alden Ehenreich (Han Solo), Donald Glover (Lando Calrissian), Emilia Clarke (Qi’ra), Woody Harrelson (Beckett), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca)

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Our Rating: B

“Solo: A Star Wars Story” has caused a rift in the Star Wars fan community in that vanilla “Star Wars” fans are now at odds with the “Star Wars” fans who enjoy good heist movies. This is mostly due to the fact that most elements of “Solo” that connect it to “Star Wars” are forced, or weak in delivery, but it was at the same time a very good “real” crime movie. The plot was, for the most part, believable featuring motivated characters, all of whom were well performed by fantastic actors. The sad thing about this movie is that it’s a great movie, just with no necessary connection to Star Wars.

The actual movie was fantastic, but the fact that it was a “Star Wars” film leeched from that greatness, making it less than fantastic. As far as the plot, it rolls along like any sort of high-stakes crime or heist movie, with the standard amount of double crosses, romance, backstabs and betrayals, with little bits of “Star Wars” here and there of course. When the big boss of the criminal organization was revealed, the creators of the film practically yoinked him out of canonical lore, inserted him into the movie and pretended it made sense. When it came to Solo getting the name “Solo,” it felt as if the creators of the movie forgot to write it into the original script and threw the line in during filming.

Overall, the movie part of “Solo” holds up critically, but it begins to fail when the director tried to force a heist movie in the context of a “Star Wars” film. “Solo” simultaneously tries to be “Ocean’s 11”-  a witty heist movie- as well as a decent origin story for Han Solo. While it did manage to be what it wanted to be as far as heisting is concerned, it falls short of anything resembling a solid introduction to Han Solo.