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Thursday, May 31, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS
Considering the well publicized
production
issues
that
plagued
“Solo” — which saw its original
directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller
(“The LEGO Movie”) fired due to
creative differences midway through
production and replaced with Ron
Howard (“Rush”) shortly after —
having the finished product be at the
least watchable is a victory. And by
some miracle, it’s actually good.
“Solo” is a fun, one-off story that
doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
It’s a heist movie in space with a
loveable cast of characters and more
than enough terrific set pieces to
go around. The shoddy pacing and
subpar first act make it the weakest
of the new wave of “Star Wars”
movies but those looking for another
adventure in a galaxy far, far away
will nonetheless find themselves
more than satisfied.
Beneath
its
heist
trappings,
“Solo” plays as part origin story and
part fictional biopic for everyone’s
favorite smuggler-turned-war-hero,
Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich, “Hail,
Caesar!”). After escaping the dystopia
of his homeworld of Corellia, Han
runs into a band of crooks, led by
Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson,
“Three Billboards outside Ebbing,
Missouri”), who allow the young
Solo to tag along.
When a theft goes wrong, forcing
them to embark on a dangerous
mission
together,
we
see
the
beginnings of Han’s partnership
with
his
Wookiee
co-pilot,
Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo, “Star
Wars: The Last Jedi”), the suave,
but two-faced, businessman Lando
Calrissian (Donald Glover, TV’s
“Atlanta”)
and
the
Millennium
Falcon, the fastest hunk of junk in
the galaxy.
The role LucasFilm hopes the
anthologies will play is clear with
two saga films and two of these
“Star Wars Stories” under their belt.
While the episodic films like “The
Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi”
will continue to carry “Star Wars”
forward and ensure its longevity, the
“Star Wars Stories” exist to recall
the original trilogy and allow us to
continue to play in that sandbox.
For better or for worse, “Solo” does
just that. The interactions between
Han and Lando are a joy to watch as
both Ehrenreich and Glover inhabit
their characters perfectly without
resorting simply to impressions.
Han’s cockiness and snark, Lando’s
status as the smoothest of criminals
— it’s all there. Even better, there’s
the start of what can only be
described as a bromance between
man and Wookiee since “Solo” does
more for Chewie as a character and
his friendship with Han than any
other “Star Wars” movie.
The weaker fanservice is less
prevalent and apparent than in, say,
the prequel trilogy, but the first act
still packs in a groan-
worthy moment of
revelation that ranks
among
the
worst
in
the
franchise.
It may not be “a
scientific explanation
of the Force” bad,
but I’d argue it is
“prepubescent
Anakin
Skywalker
built C-3PO” bad. In fact, the entire
Corellia set first sequence has clunky
moments of nostalgia that do no
favors for the rest of the movie. As
opposed to the sci-fi crime movie
that follows, these scenes play more
like “Oliver Twist” in space and
if the first 10-to-15 minutes of the
movie were cut, “Solo” would likely
be better for it.
From there on out, director Ron
Howard ably plays to the strengths
of his cast and his characters alike. A
heist early on is an homage to Han’s
origins as a western archetype.
Another sequence set on Kessel — a
name that should be familiar to die-
hard “Star Wars” fans as the place
where Han made his name as one
of the greatest pilots in the galaxy —
should certainly be in contention for
the best set piece of 2018.
Like its title character, “Solo”
is a little rough around the edges
and
prone
to
the
occasional
overindulgence,
but
like
Han
himself,
it’s also charming,
charismatic and liable
to win over even the
most cynical among
its audience. Overall,
it’s a sustained thrill
ride that starts fun
and only gets more
and more bombastic
and fantastic the longer it goes.
I’ll admit that I was apprehensive
as the lights went down and the
LucasFilm logo lit up this time
around — both because of the firing
of previous directors Lord and Miller
and the collapse of the “Star Wars”
fanbase post-“Last Jedi” into toxic
anarchy — but credit is undoubtedly
due to Howard for righting the ship
and delivering a movie that, for the
most part, reminded me why I fell in
love with this franchise in the first
place.
‘Solo’ brings ‘Star
Wars’ back home
FILM REVIEW
RCA
FILM COLUMN
STEPHEN SATARINO
Daily Arts Writer
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
“Solo”
Walt Disney
Studios Motion
Pictures
Ann Arbor 20 +
Imax, Goodrich
Quality 16
If there was any place to start a
dive into the French New Wave, any
key figure to visit first, it would have
to be the spearhead of the cinematic
movement
—
the
ever-prolific
Francois Truffaut. Truffaut’s name
is difficult to avoid wherever the
history of cinema is brought up.
Even for me, someone without any
proper film theory education, his
name is the first to pop up in any
internet search, the first mentioned
in any academic reading, the first
slid into any conversation — and
after watching “The 400 Blows” this
week, I can’t say I’m surprised.
The autobiographical “The 400
Blows”
follows
young
Antoine
Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), an
emotionally
abandoned
Parisian
boy with a propensity for mischief
that stems from troubled childhood
years. Doinel never seems like a
particularly bad kid; he thieves and
he lies and he skips class to go to
the cinema, but the child never acts
malicious or vindictive in any way.
All
things
considered,
the
treatment that he receives from his
parents and from his teacher feels
unwarranted, as though there’s
something else we cannot see. The
film gives its answer in the form of
a great scene just before the end
where Doinel explains the trials of
his early life to a child psychiatrist
at a delinquent detention center. He
speaks candidly about his mother’s
contempt for him, and of her wish
for an abortion.
As the veil is lifted on Doinel’s
past, the poor boy’s reality on screen
begins to make unfortunate sense.
The “Blows” in the title is apparently
a poor translation for a french idiom;
a more accurate translation of the
meaning of the title would be “The
400 Practical Jokes.”
The film’s honesty is its greatest
strength. Much praise can be
given to Truffaut’s writing and his
directing, but Léaud stole the show.
He is resigned, and far too mature
for his age, as he relays to the doctor
the truths of his life. Throughout
the film he is happy, interested and
engaged in his life, emotions which
seem more important once its
known what is going on under the
surface.
In terms of the script, Truffaut is
careful with his honesty. He doesn’t
toss the pain of his protagonist out
in front of the audience up front, he
waits and lets Léaud build up his
own reputation before throwing it on
its head. The partnership between
the real Antoine Doinel and the one
that appears on screen is masterful,
and I think it has a lot to do with how
close Truffaut was personally to the
subject matter at hand.
Throughout his career, Truffaut
was
outspoken
on
his
belief
that there should be a personal
connection between the filmmaker
and their film, much in the way an
author’s specific and individual
voice shapes their novel. This
idea became the foundation for
Truffuat’s well documented “auteur
theory,” which first appeared in his
1954 essay “Une Certaine Tendance
du Cinéma Français,” and built upon
the concepts introduced by Astruc a
decade before.
The bulk of the essay is criticism
against
the
status-quo
French
cinema of the time. Many of the
films receiving critical acclaim in
the middle of the century were
adaptations of great works of
literature for the screen. While
Truffaut doesn’t argue against the
craftsmanship, he calls for a shift
in the types of stories told: Away
from recycled goods to narratives
written for the screen, declaring
an adaptation only of value when
written by “a man of the cinema.”
One other thing that interested
me in “Certaine Tendance” was
Truffaut’s description of a specific
story archetype that he didn’t want
to see anymore. As he writes, “It
is not exaggerating to say that the
hundred-odd french films made each
year tell the same story: It’s always a
question of a victim… the knavery
of his kin and the hatred among
the members of his family lead the
‘hero’ to his doom… the principal
character,
normally
constituted
when the curtain rises on him, finds
himself crippled at the end of the
play.” Truffaut stands firmly against
helpless protagonists or protagonists
who don’t have enough moral
substance to resist temptation that
would pull them away from their
principles. I guess Truffaut wouldn’t
like “Boogie Nights.”
Truffaut’s legacy stretches much
further than “Certaine Tendance”
and “The 400 Blows.” He became
obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock
and greater America as a whole in
the 1960s and his films likewise
took a bit more of a commercial
turn. “The 400 Blows” lives up to its
legacy seventy years later, it’s subject
matter and the great performance by
Léaud up front making it accessible
to anyone.
The film benefits from its focus
on childhood. More than any
other narrative type, I find coming
of age stories and stories with
young protagonists in general are
oftentimes easier to sympathize
with. They lose less over time as the
sorts of difficulties the characters
face seem to be relatively universal.
“The 400 Blows” takes this familiar
narrative and elevates it. And after
my two watches for this column,
it has quickly become my favorite
foreign film I’ve seen to date.
Riding the New
Wave: Truffaut