Solo, I screened Solo. Despite the unremarkable open, to my surprise, I enjoyed it. From the bumpy tense change in the unnecessary text intro up until Solo leaves his home planet, the production bumbles along, failing to truly engage. However, bam, once Solo finds himself in the midst of someone else's war a "from bad to worse" chain of events starts turning, pulling the audience along. This chain climaxes with Solo face in the mud chained to a furry beast twice his size. This scene is masterfully crafted from script to action to film to edit – all the while showing deep respect for the source material. Plus Woody Harrelson marches in to anchor the film.

Sure, Ehrenreich doesn't have quite the swagger of Ford, but he doesn't hold the character back. And the character is so easy to love: fearless, too-good hearted to be bad, and ever ready to make lemonade from lemons. I, for one, appreciate his solution-oriented attitude, even in the face of repeated tragedy and failure.

Thankfully this STAR WARS story unwinds itself with action and light/fun drama, sparing audiences the stagnant exposition of some episodes. I enjoyed the creative ways writers found to confound Solo's plans time after time while keeping the ball rolling, and audiences guessing pretty much up to the end.

I would have given this an A- even with the weak front end, however, despite some nice twists, there was a plot progression in there that just pushed the plausibility factor too far.

Still – a lot of fun. Enjoy!

-- Books by Author/Illustrator Ross Anthony --