The title says it all. By says it all, I mean it sets the expectations for the audience for what they’re going to see. The WRONG expectations. The various other Star Wars movies have reasons for being beyond great or true disasters. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is just…acceptingly mediocre, which feels so, so much worse as a harbinger of what’s to come.
After an introductory sequence taking down a former Empire leader, the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and his adorable Baby Yoda sidekick return to a New Republic base. Their handler Ward (Sigourney Weaver) has a new task for them: find Coin, a mysterious Empire commander who no one has seen…except the Hutts. This puts Mando and Grogu on a path to Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White), heir to the Hutt gangster empire, not exactly the most above board allies who handle bad news well.
The title Jon Favreau should have gone with was “The Adventures of Grogu and the Mandalorian.” That’s a perfect prep for the best parts of this movie, a movie for CHILDREN. After any scene where someone is talking, we quick cut over to Grogu who does the most adorable thing every time, without fail. It’s very cute and silly, and fine. I have no complaints about the Grogu part of this story. In fact, the joy of watching him for 15-20 minutes have his own little silent film adventure was probably my favorite part of the movie, emotionally a big deal but otherwise delightfully droll and low stakes. The new title would let each kid just have a ball, cackling at everything Baby Yoda does, and demanding him for birthdays and Christmases, everything Kathleen Kennedy and the producers want. This is the way.
Except it isn’t cause the real title is Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. Grogu is last in that title. In the middle is the Mandalorian, getting in the middle of the story and mostly there to be Grogu’s muscle. We get no real Mandalorian lore drops we don’t already know, and frankly, lessens my joy of the TV show. Mandalorians are bounty hunters, and (it’s repeatedly said) only use force and violence if they have to. A more covert heisty movie with Grogu and Mando in the shadows could have been just as exciting as the big spectacle this movie wants to deliver if done right, but Favreau and Dave Filoni have no interest in that here, sacrificing Mandalorian ways for him to plunge headfirst into the biggest fights possible like an idiot. But that’s more a nuisance. The Star Wars at the front of the title is what holds his movie back. What should be a fun almost Saturday Morning Cartoon energy gets dragged into heavy Star Wars storytelling that clangs wildly with Grogu’s amusing adventures in space. The Rotta the Hutt plotline does lead to some cool looking monsters and droid bounty hunters, but mostly it’s the bad “fan service” Filoni and Favreau think we want when the end result is yet another whiny “I am not my father” legacy tale we’ve seen before. The sobering realization watching The Mandalorian and Grogu is that the gravitational force of Star Wars is probably going to outweigh any movie in the world, unable to let a film be its own thing without having to insert characters or story constantly tying to a greater tale. Such a shame.
But Grogu is cute. And undeniable. So parents, get ready to see like 12 of these movies. And Star Wars fans, the thing you loved and thought was perfect slowly is gonna get chewed up and spit out by the IP machine, sorry. THIS is the way. Bleh, feels icky that it’s probably true.