Disney / Buena Vista
When Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s The Mandalorian first premiered on Disney+ in the run-up to the holiday season in 2019, the stripped back approach to telling the story of a fearsome Mandalorian bounty hunter reluctantly becoming the protector of an infant being of the same species as Yoda and Yaddle took viewers by storm, as many fans found the obnoxiously bloated and needlessly convoluted Star Wars sequel trilogy had ended the main saga on an underwhelming note.
After reaching a narrative crescendo with the climactic finale of its second season, the third season of The Mandalorian turned out to be a mixed bag of misadventures with varying degrees of entertainment value.
Now, after a three-year hiatus, the improbable clan of two have returned to lead a film of their own.
In terms of plot, there is nothing worth writing home about, as the film is barely comparable to a few episodes of the show in a trenchcoat masquerading as a feature film.
This hardly comes as a surprise, however, where a season of the show would have had an overarching narrative to propel the story forward as a whole, The Mandalorian and Grogu is so lacking in narrative heft that it seems Favreau and Filoni forgot to write a script to accompany the numerous vignettes of action sequences.
To begin with, the nonstop action is fun in and of itself, as the filmmakers manage to approximate notes of Spielberg’s big adventure fare from the 1980s here and there, all of which is beautifully emphasized by Ludwig Göransson’s score underlining why he is one of the best composers working today.
However, at about the halfway point, a narrative thread reaches its seeming conclusion, and what follows is the film aimlessly meandering along without any memorable or meaningful moments, utterly devoid of character development or narrative propulsion, as Din Djarin and Grogu are relegated to being hollow echos of what made audiences fall in love with them in the first place.
Not even capable of doing decent fan service or expanding the lore, the film feels flat and sloppy, serving only as a testament to why the show would have been best served by ending after that second season finale, where Grogu was collected by a certain someone.
Naturally, one could argue that George Lucas himself has always held firm that Star Wars is for kids, and that it does not need a grand narrative for audiences to have a good time, but just because something is made to entertain young audiences and push merchandise sales to fans of all ages, that is not synonymous with relegating once great characters and fun writing to poorly executed shlock.
If you want to watch an action-packed, well-paced movie about a badass bounty hunter and his young ward going on a thrilling adventure featuring great characters and emotional stakes aplenty, you would be best served by watching Yuen Woo-Ping’s Blades of the Guardians, as The Mandalorian and Grogu unfortunately fails to deliver any meaningful addition to the galaxy far, far away, instead serving as a blinding beacon of the creative bankruptcy of the studio system, as contemporary Hollywood blockbusters continue to disappoint.
Extras include commentary and featuettes.
