Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu review

STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU: 

A FUN BUT GENERIC ADVENTURE IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

LUCASFILM LTD

Mando and “The Kid” in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu

 

            Mando, Baby Yoda, and Star Wars return in The Mandalorian and Grogu, the latest film in the Star Wars saga and the first Star Wars movie since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. The film is directed by Jon Favreau (Zathura, Iron Man 1 and 2, The Jungle Book (2016)) and is a continuation of the Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, which was released from 2019-2023. 

            I really liked the Mandalorian show, well…mainly the first two seasons, and thought it was a refreshing entry in the Star Wars franchise, especially after a letdown sequel trilogy. Basically, a Star Wars version of a western, and unlike Solo: A Star Wars Story…people actually watched it and introduced a bunch of memorable new characters and ideas in the franchise’s mythos. 

            I actually watched Season 3 for the first time recently before seeing this movie, and…it’s fine, it’s definitely a huge step down from the earlier seasons, but I didn’t think it was bad and ended on a decent note. Which brings us to this movie, and I didn’t really have any expectations going into it. 

The Star Wars films have been pretty bumpy to say the least, especially after Disney acquired it with a very strong starting point with 2015’s The Force Awakens and an ultimate fumble with the already mentioned Rise of Skywalker that closed the sequel trilogy off. Despite that, Star Wars has seen a lot of success with their TV and streaming shows, including The Mandalorian, Andor, The Bad Batch, and the new Darth Maul animated series that just came out, maybe now is a perfect time for the Star Wars films to come out of hibernation and bring that magic back…The Mandalorian and Grogu doesn’t quite do that! 

This isn’t a bad film, and there are moments of fun and creativity, but I found a lot of it to be pretty standard. With that said, the charm of its titular characters does carry the film despite its flaws. 

The film is set sometime after the last episode and follows Din Djarin/The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal-The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Materialists, The Fantastic Four: First Steps) and his apprentice, Grogu being enlisted by the New Republic and their Ward (Sigourney Weaver-Alien franchise, Galaxy Quest, Avatar franchise) to rescue a Hutt known as Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen White-The Bear, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, The Social Reckoning) in exchange for information on a mysterious new target. Yeah, that’s about it, and they stretch it out for 2 hours and 12 minutes! 

The film also stars Jonny Coyne-Alcatraz, Once Upon a Time, The Toxic Avenger (2025)) reprising his role as Janu Coin, the film’s co-writer Dave Filoni reprising his role as both Trapper Wolf and Embo, Steve Blum (Cowboy Bebop, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Wolverine and the X-Men) reprising his role as the voice of Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios, film director Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, Hugo) as the voice of…Hugo the shopkeeper and Matt Willig (Year One, We’re the Millers, Birds of Prey) as Hogsbreth. 

Overall, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is far from being the worst Star Wars movie, and there are some great aspects about it, but it’s still a pretty mid-entry in this franchise that never really takes the series anywhere new. Favreau has shown many times before that he has talent both in front of and behind the camera and is more than capable of crafting something engaging and entertaining (Elf, the first Iron Man, the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, etc.), so I just find it baffling that a Mandalorian movie directed by the man who basically started the Disney+ series could be so generic. 

Everything is kind of going through the motions and not really taking The Mandalorian or the Star Wars franchise in general to new heights. Most of the stuff in this movie was already done and done better in the show, the mission, the side quests, all of it, because the show actually made you care for the characters and what their conflicts were. 

I’m actually struggling to remember what Mando’s goal even was in this movie aside from collecting information on a target. There wasn’t really any character growth for him, and I actually got far more development out of the three seasons of his show than I did in this. 

To Pedro Pascal’s credit, he still plays the Mandalorian very well, and his charisma does shine through whether he’s kicking ass or interacting with Grogu or any of the other characters. His charm works well enough, even if this movie does him dirty compared to the show a lot of the time. 

I did enjoy Steve Blum’s performance as the voice of this New Republic pilot who joins Mando on his quest quite a bit, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a huge fan of his work. His vocal delivery, snark, and wit really brought that character to life, and it was an absolute delight hearing his voice come out of movie theater speakers. 

The action sequences are fine, though it’s the typical spaceships shooting lasers at other spaceships that we’ve seen in other Star Wars movies. For the most part, they’re shot and choreographed well, and the practical and CG effects do look good. 

The film itself, though, is pretty damn ugly and murky in terms of the visuals, with constant dark greens clouding the scenes and dimmed lighting. I don’t know what Favreau, Disney, or the visual effects team were thinking when making the color scheme so drab, especially compared to how vibrant and colorful other Star Wars movies and even the Mandalorian series are, which took me out of it and is probably my most glaring issue with the production. 

I also felt the movie was too long, and I can pinpoint the exact moment when it started to drag for me; it was when a character gets poisoned and is slowly dying, and the film spends a lot of time on another character trying to get the supplies needed to save them. It actually made me miss the long Pod Race from The Phantom Menace or the Sand talk from Attack of the Clones; that part was so dull. 

I’m just barely giving this film a positive review because The Mandalorian and Grogu is not a bad movie; it is perfectly fine for what it is, and those looking for big-screen Star Wars thrills will likely get their fill. But coming off the series that started to breathe new life into Star Wars, I expected better.