‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ is a glorified TV movie that’s also a blast
2026 / Dir. Jon Favreau
Rating: 3.5/5
Watch if you like: the Disney+ streaming series The Mandalorian, instilling your child with the joy and wonder of seeing a Star Wars movie in a theater, going on an acid trip but it’s just Jabba the Hutt with abs.
Saddled with the unfair expectations of the first Star Wars theatrical release in almost a decade since the not-as-bad-as-you-remember Solo, The Mandalorian and Grogu is more of a puffed-up version of a TV movie than an expansion of the cinematic universe. If you’re already a fan of The Mandalorian or taking your kids to see their first Star Wars movie, you’re in for a fun ride. If you’re expecting this space opera adventure to make up for all the perceived issues of the reboot trilogy and spend your days complaining on Reddit, nothing will probably ever make you happy, but this definitely isn’t going to restore your faith in Disney’s stewardship of the Star Wars IP.
The fun part about the Disney+ show when it first came out was how refreshing it felt to get away from nine movies about the Skywalker legacy, while returning to the western and samurai influences that made A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back what they were. By going down to a comparatively smaller scale, we got to experience what life was like for both the regular people who live in the Star Wars universe and the weir, unsavory background characters who populated places like the Mos Eisley cantina from the original movie. Plus, the “Baby Yoda” puppet, Grogu, was, and still is, very cute and charming.
Eschewing any baggage that would prevent newcomers from understanding what’s going on, we find our Mandalorian bounty hunter (voiced and sometimes played by Pedro Pascal) and his force-using adoptive son helping the New Republic pick off former Imperial officers, starting with an ass-kicking intro as “Mando” singlehandedly recreates the icy battle on Hoth that starts The Empire Strikes Back. Soon after, his handler, Ward (Sigourney Weaver), sends him and Grogu to the home planet of Jabba the Hutt’s uncomfortably close twin siblings. The Hutt’s planet looks as if The Lion King had become infested by a putrid swamp with way too many Hutt creatures wandering around. The twins want Mando to find Jabba’s long-lost son (voiced by Jeremy Allen White, in English, which is very strange) and bring him back; in exchange, they’ll point him in the direction of one of the most wanted Imperial commanders.
What follows is pure space adventure with the fat trimmed to a minimum, moving Mando and Grogu through a series of interconnected action scenes full of characteristically odd Star Wars moments and characters like Martin Scorsese voicing a four-armed monkey man that runs an alien French fry stand on a neon and rain-drenched, Blade Runner-esque moon city, Jabba’s son and Grogu frolicking on the beach, and a geeky tribute to the opening of John Woo’s Hard Boiled. Other than the series’ ongoing theme of a father trying to prepare his child for the world before his death, there’s nothing too heavy here thematically or big dumps of new lore to keep track of. It plays like another entry in a long-running series, and it’s for the best that Jon Favreau and Disney didn’t try to make this a jumping-off point for a new trilogy or set up a bunch of Marvel-style offshoots (the TV show already does plenty of that).
That said, there’s plenty of wonky dialogue, and the biggest offender is the inconsistent CGI. A fight with a white dragon in a swampy pit can look stunning, while the Hutts look pretty rough. Sometimes there are lots of bland, murky textures, and other times you get gorgeous neon lighting reflected on a wet road set to a stellar Ludwig Göransson ‘80s-style synth score. It’s clear Disney didn’t throw everything they had at this, and there’s nothing as visually memorable as some of the highlights of the reboot trilogy (for all their faults, those movies looked damn good).
Thankfully, it feels like a real treat in the back half, when the pace slows to focus on Baby Yoda and the Anzellans (aka Babu Frik from Rise of the Skywalker), who are all puppets or rendered in stop-motion. These scenes feel most like classic Star Wars and less like the more plastic-feeling George Lucas prequels, which the CGI here can feel like.
The Mandalorian and Grogu may be a disappointment to some looking for the next Jedi saga, but I don’t mind at all that they’re going this route. I had a blast watching this, especially compared to Pedro Pascal’s recent Marvel gig, and I hope Ryan Gosling’s upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter takes a similarly low-key approach with a one-off adventure, focusing on a different aspect of the Star Wars universe. I’d love to see a new Jedi-style trilogy, but not until there’s a well-thought-out idea.