REEL | 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' Forges Another 'Star Wars' Way

"We'll take out every bad guy in your deck of cards."

Lucasfilm / Fairview Entertainment

The Mandalorian creator, actor/filmmaker Jon Favreau, takes his flagship Star Wars series to the big screen in The Mandalorian and Grogu. Pedro Pascal's titular veteran bounty hunter, named Din Djarin, alongside his adorable puppet sidekick orphan alien (aka "Baby Yoda"), is tasked with another basic but extended intergalactic side mission very much in the vein of the popular, heavily Western-influenced television show set after Return of the Jedi.

There are surprisingly few supporting characters (almost none from the series) aside from Sigourney Weaver's Colonel Ward and Jeremy Allen White voicing the monstrously jacked Rotta the Hutt (son of Jabba). The extremely basic plot has the former contracting the duo to capture the latter on orders of the New Republic in league with Jabba's devious twin siblings, looking to consolidate power on the jungle planet of Nal Hutta. Everything that follows is done to get our heroes on this suspiciously episodic path, scripted by Favreau, incoming Lucasfilm president Dave Filoni, and co-screenwriter Noah Kloor, with the appropriate amount of cinematic obstacles standing in their way.

Filmed on sets in California, regular Star Wars TV cinematographer David Klein frames the film's otherworldly locations with the usual competent vision and CGI-heavy flair. However, three-time Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Göransson's trademark, pulsating score gives us those much-needed Western vibes to elevate the rather standard "Man with No Name"-style plotline. Where the show succeeds by ending each part where the events began, ready for another adventure, the entertaining effort feels insubstantial, with likely more enjoyment from audiences who have not caught up with The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian and Grogu does, unfortunately, feel like a super-sized or stitched-together set of episodes of the eponymous Disney+ series it's based on, without enough obvious justification for its extended length or transfer to the movie theatres. Its extra-long runtime hurts the pacing with expected act breaks and padded story beats. More than anything, its fight choreography and action start to get repetitive over the 132-minute film, clearly more suited to the conventionally separated chapters it obviously originally had in mind.


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