Joel on Film

Across a few seasons of television, we became acquainted with the Mandalorian, a for-hire bounty hunter and member of an ancient religious sect, and Grogu, a thoroughly adorable foundling whose green, pointed ears were instantly familiar to anybody who has enjoyed the Star Wars franchise for as long as it’s endured. The first season was strong, reminding quite a lot of the earliest films in the space-opera saga, with its focused sense of grand adventure. It sort of went downhill in future seasons as the adventures became more episodic and the showrunners placed more emphasis on nostalgic callbacks (the less said about a spin-off miniseries, ostensibly about a more recognizable bounty hunter but eventually just another cog in the Mandalorian machine, the better).

Now, the bounty hunter and his quarry-turned-apprentice arrive on the big screen, and unfortunately, the most notable thing about The Mandalorian and Grogu is how it feels wholly extraneous to everything the series purported to be about. This is, in every way remotely possible, a standalone adventure, aside from who its two protagonists are. That’s fine in theory, but in practice, it doesn’t inspire much awe or enthusiasm.

Funnily enough, the idea here, on the part of screenwriters Jon Favreau (who also directed), Dave Filoni (who also created the series) and Noah Kloor, would seem to be a slight corrective to the ongoing problem of overly complicated summer blockbusters and the intellectual property from which they often come. There is only one minor involvement of a character previously encountered, and that particular character was featured in one of the main episodes of the so-called Skywalker saga. Otherwise, none of the television series’ characters show up here, even for so much as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo, and in a certain way, we sigh with relief about that fact.

In another way, though, it means the movie entirely relies upon seeing Grogu (once again brought to life via puppetry and animatronics) and the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal, alongside credited body doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder) in uncharted territory. In that mode, plugged into a plot as generic as this one, they hold a lot less interest than we might be expecting. We learn nothing new about the Mandalorian, for instance, and in one moment that seems specifically engineered for newcomers, he reveals his face once again—a big no-no within the Mandalorian guard—and then never deals with any theoretical aftermath.

As for Grogu, he had ended the series as the adoptive son of the Mandalorian, as well as a knowingly Force-sensitive budding Jedi. Here, he uses his powers only a handful of times (most of those for the purposes of comic relief). The appeal of the character is, as it was on the show, his adorable inscrutability, and he even gets one of the film’s best stretches, partnering up with a crew of diminutive mechanics to save the day.

No plot has been mentioned until now, although that’s mostly because it’s such a throwaway series of ploddingly connected events that it barely registers: The Mandalorian is hired to deliver the disgraced Rotta the Hutt (voice of Jeremy Allen White, sounding disinterested), a trained fighter and the son of Jabba, from the clutches of captivity to the custody of his family. That all doesn’t quite go to plan, of course, so the rest of the movie is a routine series of escapes. For Favreau, it’s an excuse to feature some recognizable faces (Sigourney Weaver as a commander for the New Republic) and voices (Martin Scorsese as a knowledgeable food vendor) and a handful of action set pieces.

The problem here, though, is that none of this shares the distinctive personality of the show at its earliest and best—except in a few moments of tenderness between the master and his apprentice, in the rousing score by Ludwig Göransson (for which the composer has added some new and boisterous themes to join the older, already iconic ones) and in some mildly clever bits within the action, such as a rendezvous with a massive and quite intimidating sea serpent. The Mandalorian and Grogu coasts on the name recognition of this specific branch of the franchise, but it lacks a lot of the parts that work together to create an actually thrilling experience.

Rating: ** (out of ****)