The Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his apprentice Grogu are tasked by the New Republic to rescue Rotta The Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) from captivity.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away — specifically, November 2019 — Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin first stepped into a seedy cantina in the Outer Rim. Set during the fragile peace of the Star Wars’ New Republic era — the Weimar-esque interwar years, post-Vader, pre-Ren — The Mandalorian was an unusual offering. Star Wars’ first foray into live-action TV (notwithstanding the Star Wars Holiday Special or Ewoks: The Battle For Endor), this was a series with no major star, no legacy characters, no lightsabers.
That feels like a long time ago. Legacy characters and sabers (dark or otherwise) have since snuck their way into the series, while Pedro Pascal’s profile has risen faster than the Millennium Falcon bombing it down the Kessel Run. The show’s scope and scale was never small, so it makes sense that Mando and Grogu have found their way to the big screen; still, the series seemed to find a natural conclusion at the end of Season 2, when Din tearfully left his little green mate in the capable hands of one L. Skywalker. Since then, it’s felt a little like treading water, with a third season that introduced lots more Mandalorians but fewer compelling stories. That feeling isn’t entirely shaken off in this feature-length tale, which doesn’t add much to the canon.
The first half of the film rattles along at a merry old pace with some stirring action, and characters both old and new peppering the background.
Instead, it’s a back-to-basics adventure, obeying the founding principles of the show: blending elements of Westerns and old Saturday-morning one-reels into a ripping-yarn caper, while studiously avoiding getting bogged down in complex lore or anything too deep. It begins confidently in this manner, with Mando — introduced heroically in the shadows — engaging in some satisfying gun-slinging and cowboyish drawls (“I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold,” he snarls, nodding to the pilot episode.)
The first half of the film rattles along at a merry old pace with some stirring action, and characters both old (Star Wars Rebels’ furry blue pilot Zeb, voiced by Steve Blum, makes his film debut here) and new (Sigourney Weaver adds another nerd notch to her CV as Colonel Ward) peppering the background. Mando is now working full time as an “independent contractor” for the New Republic: still a bounty hunter for hire, but exclusively for the good guys. This is how he enters the orbit of the Twins, the Hutt gangsters desperate to retrieve their roided-up nephew Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), son of the fearsome Jabba.
Rotta is the film’s first stumble: while the twins speak in traditional tongue-twisting Huttese, Rotta bafflingly speaks Galactic Basic with a New York accent, with which he whines about being a nepo baby (nepo-Jabb-y?) while getting a droid-based sports massage. Rotta might be a fan-favourite from his appearance in the original Clone Wars film, but here his presence begins to make the film feel repetitive — quite literally, sluggish. Time and time again, Mando is forced to fight reams of CGI aliens where the stakes rarely rise above, “How is Mando going to get out of this pickle?”
Just when you think the film has forgotten the second character named in its title, the pace abruptly slows in the third act, when Mando takes a backseat to the Artist Formerly Known As Baby Yoda. There is a lovely, bucolic, near-wordless sequence in which Grogu takes the lead, demonstrating quiet tenderness, resilience and leadership that belies his mere 50-something years. While the film sometimes coasts on his cuteness — the introduction of multiple equally adorable Anzellans adds to this feeling — it never forgets that he remains its greatest asset.
What it does slightly forget to do, though, is move the story forward in any meaningful way. Oddly, it feels like the least consequential Mandalorian chapter yet, with previous episodes from the TV incarnation — or even segments of the much-maligned Book Of Boba Fett — having more impact on the narrative. It’s thinner than skimmed blue milk, with longtime series stewards Jon Favreau (director and co-writer) and Dave Filoni (co-writer and new Galactic Emperor of the entire franchise) largely playing it safe. Perhaps after the relative disappointment of The Rise Of Skywalker, this is all it needed or was intended to be. The Mandalorian And Grogu is, primarily, For Kids, as George Lucas always insisted Star Wars was, and on those modest terms, it finds the way.
The first Star Wars film in nearly a decade doesn’t shake up the formula: instead, it’s a lively if inessential extended episode of the series. But Mando remains cool, and Grogu remains cute