(MENAFN- Arab Times) Han Solo, the "Star Wars" space hero who always has a fast ship and a good blaster, will get his own stand-alone film, the Walt Disney Co said on Tuesday, directed by the "Lego Movie" film makers. The untitled Han Solo project, slated for release on May 25, 2018, will be the second stand-alone "Star Wars" anthology film, following the release of "Rogue One" next year. These films will explore a separate part of George Lucas' intricate intergalactic universe and will intersperse the new trilogy of "Star Wars" movies kicking off with December's highly anticipated "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
The new Han Solo film will focus on the origin story of the character made famous in the "Star Wars" films by actor Harrison Ford, who will reprise that role in "The Force Awakens." Solo was introduced in the original "Star Wars" film as a former smuggler who takes Luke Skywalker aboard his ship, the Millennium Falcon, and helps him escape Darth Vader. Solo becomes the lovable scoundrel of the Rebel Alliance, fighting against the oppressive Galactic Empire along with his friend and co-pilot Chewbacca, a bear-like "wookie." "The story focuses on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi- Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley," Disney said in a statement.
Filmmakers Chris Miller and Phil Lord, best known for "Lego Movie," the reboot of "21 Jump Street" and also Fox TV's hit comedy series "The Last Man on Earth," will direct the movie, which has yet to announce a cast. "We promise to take risks, to give the audience a fresh experience, and we pledge ourselves to be faithful stewards of these characters who mean so much to us," Miller and Lord said in a statement. Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, best known for co-writing "The Empire Strikes Back," "Return of the Jedi" and "The Force Awakens," will pen the screenplay with his son Jon Kasdan. "The Force Awakens" is the first of three new "Star Wars" films being produced by Walt Disney Co since it purchased the franchise from Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion. The six previously released "Star Wars" films have grossed more than $4.4 billion at the worldwide box office since 1977 and spawned a legion of devoted fans.
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Self/less," if you couldn't tell from the preposterous title, is a deeply silly movie that takes itself very, very seriously. The premise is interesting enough: A dying man (Ben Kingsley) undergoes a procedure to save his mind by ditching his failing body for a shiny new model (Ryan Reynolds, you could do worse). But, the lofty ambitions, trite messages, half-hearted allegories and over-the-top caricatures make director Tarsem Singh's ("The Cell," "The Fall") latest a misguidedly campy experience. Here, the dying man, Damian (Kingsley), is possibly the worst person in the world. In the opening scene, he destroys a young competitor who is aiming to encroach on his real estate empire. Damian, you see, is extremely wealthy and powerful. He's "the man who built New York from the ground up" and he can ruin another's life before lunch, almost for sport. He's also only got six months to live. His cancer has metastasized and he has yet to come to terms with it. He hasn't even told his daughter ("Downton Abbey's" Michelle Dockery in a tiny role), although we'll soon find out that they're estranged. This is a selfish, egotistical man.
The type who walks all the way over to the driver's side of his town car to knock on the window so the driver will get out and open the passenger seat door for him. The type who is so consumed with his own specialness that he will pay $250 million for a new "vessel" for his brilliant mind. The type who also craves immortality so wholly that he doesn't ask too many questions about the origins of the new body. The doctor behind the controversial "shedding" procedure, Albright (a mustache- twirling Matthew Goode), snivels that the bodies are grown in labs. Right. Anyway, in his new, youthful body Damian goes off to live in New Orleans to play pickup basketball, party and get girls ó a lot of them. (There's an entire montage of young beauties falling on his bed). Because even with 86 years of wisdom, when you're suddenly given the body of Ryan Reynolds, priorities shift. So much for using that great mind!
Problem
And this is the main problem. In Kingsley's Damian was a sour, ruthless, brilliant man who'd constructed his own empire in a lifetime. Reynolds' Damian is a little dopey, deeply curious and empathetic from the start, lacking even an ounce of that bitter, eagle-eyed intensity and captain of industry drive. It's as though they're just two completely different men, which makes for a far less interesting film, especially when Damian begins to suspect that perhaps his new body didn't come out of a lab. Young Damian starts having visions of a life on a farm with a woman and child. Albright swears they're hallucinations, but Damian is compelled to investigate € perhaps his most out of character move. Why would he start caring about others now? That curiosity gets him entangled in the lives of the women in his visions, Madeline (Natalie Martinez) and young daughter Anna (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen), who he now feels obligated to protect from a murderous Albright and his thugs. The rest of the movie is a cat and mouse chase. Despite some gorgeous, studied visuals, it all feels rather standard with increasingly diminished returns.
"Self/less" imagines itself as a high-concept redemption tale. But in execution, it's more concerned with the action than the big questions or dark implications, which stay at surface level in the script from Alex Pastor and David Pastor. Damian makes a few sacrifices along the way (although they're also primarily selfish acts) and finds a certain peace amid the chaos, but we never cared. The movie just assumes the audience will develop some empathy for him along the way, never wondering why we'd ever root for this awful billionaire € even in Ryan Reynolds' body. "Self/less," a Focus Features release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "sequences of violence, some sexuality, and language." Running time: 116 minutes. One star out of four.
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