It’s been almost seven years since a new Star Wars film hit movie theaters, but after watching Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, I think we should wait even more before giving it another shot.
It’s not that I don’t love to watch Star Wars on the big screen. I would just rather wait longer for a great, fresh Star Wars film to come along, and The Mandalorian and Grogu is certainly not that film.
The problem starts with the source material: TV series The Mandalorian. What began as a superlative space Western soon spiraled into a never-ending parade of references to other Star Wars stories, from the original trilogy to The Clone Wars to Rebels. The Mandalorian became nostalgia central, and a symptom of larger problems with Star Wars as a whole: The franchise is terrified to move beyond what fans already know. (Look no further than fans’ reaction to The Acolyte, and the show’s cancellation.)
That nostalgia is a tad less stifling in The Mandalorian and Grogu, which manages to weave in its fair share of former characters without totally hitting viewers over the head with it. However, the film is still a slog: an unwieldy adventure full of illegible action and the creeping sense of dread that we’ve seen this all before. Not even Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu’s sweet bond can Force lift it to success.
What’s The Mandalorian and Grogu about?
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Following The Mandalorian Season 3, The Mandalorian and Grogu sees Din and Grogu working for the New Republic. Supervised by Colonel Ward (an underutilized Sigourney Weaver), they hunt down Imperial warlords still in hiding.
Their first quarry in the film holes up in possibly the grayest, most underlit room in the entire galaxy, a location that doesn’t quite raise your hopes for director Jon Favreau’s vision. Thankfully, their quest for their next target, the mysterious Commander Coin, will take them to far more interesting (if still somewhat drab) locales, from a crime-ridden, neon-lit metropolis on Shakari to the gooey tunnels of Nal Hutta.
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The latter is the home of the Hutt clan, currently ruled by the Hutt twins. (If you’re keeping score of The Mandalorian and Grogu’s references to other Star Wars properties, they showed up in The Book of Boba Fett.) These big ol’ space slugs are willing to cough up valuable information to the New Republic, but only if Din can rescue Jabba the Hutt’s very ripped son Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen White) from the Shakari fighting pits. (Add another reference to the tally: Rotta’s kidnapping was a key part of 2008’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars film.)
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If the thought of The Bear‘s White voicing a Hutt excited you, I’d advise you to lower your expectations. His voice is nearly unrecognizable, and his performance oddly flat. The dialogue he’s saddled with does him no favors. Twice, he gives almost the exact same monologue about how hard it was to have Jabba as a father, and how the fighting pits helped him step out from his shadow. Did writers Favreau, Dave Filoni (also LucasFilm President and CCO), and Noah Kloor not think we’d get it the first time?
The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s action is underwhelming.
Credit: Francois Duhamel / Lucasfilm Ltd
While we’re on the subject of Rotta, let’s get into the Shakari fighting pits. At one point, The Mandalorian sets up what should be an action slam dunk: an all-out brawl between Rotta, Mando, and the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy. What follows, though, is a confused slugfest with murky visuals, too many cuts, and no standout moments. Sure, each fighter gets a formidable introduction, but they ultimately lack individuality. (The film does get points for Rotta’s barrel roll.)
This winds up being the rule and not the exception for The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s action sequences, especially group fights where Favreau struggles to keep up with multiple players. After a certain point, despite Ludwig Göransson’s impressive score amping up the energy, these battles become chores, especially when they stack up in the movie’s jam-packed third act.
A notable exception to this rule is the film’s snowy opening, which pits Din and Grogu against a squad of AT-ATs. It’s a dynamic leap back into Star Wars, but it’s also too familiar. I mean, where have we seen AT-ATs in the snow before? It takes more than adding a cliff to your Empire Strikes Back homage to create something new.
The Mandalorian and Grogu still relies too much on nostalgia.
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s opening isn’t the only place where the film tries to tug at our Star Wars nostalgia. A later sequence involving X-wings does the same thing, as does the appearance of several characters from prior Star Wars titles, including the Hutts. Elsewhere, Rebels pilot Zeb Orrelios (voiced by Steve Blum) shuttles Mando on his missions, while The Clone Wars‘ bounty hunter Embo wreaks havoc in the film’s second half. The movie assumes viewers have total knowledge of both, waiting until about the halfway mark to call Zeb by his name, and never truly introducing Embo at all. For the latter, this works fine. Even without knowing who he is, he reads as a menacing bounty hunter. Still, the fact that The Mandalorian and Grogu can’t think to create a new formidable foe is what’s truly disappointing here.
As a continuation of The Mandalorian, it also makes sense that the film picks up with Din and Grogu as they were by the end of Season 3. But there’s very little growth, or establishment of any dynamic beyond standard “protector and protégé” to open the film. Yes, Grogu is adorable, and it’s fun to watch Din toggle between hardened fighter and protective father figure. But for most of the movie, I craved more.
Thankfully, I got it in The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s third act. Here, Favreau, Filoni, and Kloor flip the script, and Grogu takes on a protector role. Throughout several nearly wordless scenes, he wanders a swamp in search of ways to help his mentor. It’s a much-needed breather in a film packed to the gills with action, and it finally lets Grogu evolve from his usual state of precocious mischief-maker. (Don’t worry, he’s still cute as ever.) The swamp sequence also serves as a reminder of the remarkable craftsmanship that goes into bringing Grogu to life, the work of Legacy Effects. It’s always on display, but sometimes it threatens to get lost in The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s muddled fights. During this contemplative stretch of the film, we truly get to take in every minute detail and every carefully executed motion.
Part of the reason this sequence works so well is that it finally addresses Din’s main anxieties about Grogu’s future. Grogu will outlive Din by many centuries, but how will his life look once Din is gone? The Mandalorian and Grogu dances around this question — which should be its emotional core! — for ages. But when it finally digs into it, it’s too little, too late. Despite any worries the film may stir up, we know Din and Grogu will be a pair for as long as Disney will milk them. And anyway, this standout section must end to make way for an unremarkable climax.
Still, for those few brief minutes, The Mandalorian and Grogu finds greatness. In the end, though, the film sticks to Star Wars’ current road map to the future. Paradoxically, that strategy is just “look to the past,” and the galaxy is all the less fortunate for it.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters May 22.
