#Solo a star wars story zip#

And we’re not talking about Clarke as Qi’Ra, who sadly turns out to be the film’s weakest link as a romantic pairing, she and Ehrenreich sadly just don’t pop. Thankfully, however, Han’s closest companion is given exactly as much attention as you’d hope for. And even Lando himself isn’t given as much screentime as Glover deserves the ol’ smoothie feels rather sidelined. Interesting new characters come into, and head out of the frame a little too briskly, whether it’s Thandie Newton’s sultry career criminal Val, or Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the right-hand droid to Lando Calrissian ( Donald Glover), who believes in equal rights with organic life, and is utterly convinced Lando has a thing for her (intriguingly, neither the script nor Glover’s performance do much to convince us otherwise). It does, however, all whip by a bit too fast and comes a little too tangled in its crosses and double-crosses during the closing act. (Interestingly, we learn that the Imperial March is actually the theme-music for the Empire’s holographic recruiting ads.) There’s a lot of spectacular imagination on show here, albeit thoughtfully framed in reasurringly familiar ways, as we appreciate further glimpses of life under the giant jackboot of the Galactic Empire.

#Solo a star wars story zip#

We zip from the industrial nightmare world of Corellia (which looks like Peaky Blinders’ Birmingham executed on a planetary scale), to a World War I-ish combat zone, to a mega-mountainous landscape where Han and his new crew - led by the scurrilous Beckett ( Woody Harrelson) - pull off a high-speed over-and-under-monorail job. Howard and father-son team writers Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan cram a hell of a lot of action and locations into the considerable running time. Not that he has much time to rest on his charms. With a glowing smirk and a knack for the wisecrack, he fills Harrison Ford’s boots with rogueish panache - even if young Han himself spends much of his time here as the passenger in other, older characters’ schemes.

Watching Han and Chewie's relationship develop is one of the movie’s biggest joys.īefore Lord and Miller departed, they definitely made the right choice with Alden Ehrenreich (previously best enjoyed on-screen as the smooth-faced Western star in the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar!).