Rating 5/10
I’m old school. When I see The Mandalorian and Grogu, my brain translates that as “Boba Fett and Baby Yoda.” Not the same, but adjacent to those characters. For the uninitiated, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), aka the Mandalorian, comes from the same armored bounty-hunter tradition that made Boba Fett one of the coolest-looking characters in the original trilogy. Likewise, Grogu is from the same mysterious species as Yoda.
After several seasons on Disney+, Din Djarin and Grogu have now been upgraded to the big screen, and the promotion looks good. The effects are polished, the creatures are lively, and the worlds have a dusty space-western texture. Most importantly, Grogu remains dangerously adorable. His cuteness can absolutely carry a brisk 90-minute adventure. Unfortunately, this endeavor is 132 minutes.
Din Djarin and his tiny green foundling are now doing odd jobs for the New Republic. That means hunting down Imperial warlords in hiding. Their latest assignment is to track down a mysterious warlord named Coin (Jonny Coyne). Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver), a New Republic officer, has received information from the Hutt Twins. Jabba the Hutt’s scheming siblings have agreed to provide the intel, but only in exchange for the rescue of Jabba’s son, Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen White). That sends Djarin and Grogu to a criminal gladiator pit, where Rotta has become a fan-favorite fighter and is not especially eager to be rescued. What begins as a simple extraction soon turns into a slimy Hutt family dispute involving Rotta, his power-hungry aunt and uncle, and a crime lord with secrets of his own.
I loved the sweeping music, the polished cinematography, the artful creatures, and the superior special effects. However, there is something uniquely depressing about watching a production so professionally put together to serve such a dramatically inert story. The Mandalorian and Grogu is not bad in any noticeable way. It’s stridently okay, so aggressively committed to being merely fine, that the offense is worse than a bigger, messier failure. At least an ambitious disaster has the courage to be edgy or risky. This is an episode carefully avoiding any movement that might rock the boat, content to produce a generic romp and call it a day.
Directed by Jon Favreau, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, the effort is a carefully supervised franchise handoff: designed to deliver exactly what is expected without disturbing the fanbase or challenging anyone’s palate. It is comfort food, but the kind that has been processed until the flavor has been removed. For all its theatrical shine, the saga still feels like three meandering episodes of the Disney+ series stitched together and projected very, very large. The plot keeps insisting this is all terribly consequential, but it mostly plays like an expensive Saturday-morning serial, moving from mission to mission without ever building the sense that anything of lasting consequence is happening.
Speaking of television, I have always thought “The Stars of Star Wars” episode of The Muppet Show is one of the very best of that series. Weirdly, The Mandalorian and Grogu comes across like an updated version of that, and with Sigourney Weaver and Pedro Pascal as the guest stars. It has the disjointed rhythm of a sketch show: a gladiator pit here, a Hutt family squabble there, some bounty hunter business, and Grogu being adorable for the giggles.
Sigourney Weaver plays Colonel Ward, a New Republic officer who sends Djarin and Grogu on their quest. Her performance carries the weight of a contractual obligation that the actress squeezed between her early-morning Pilates class and reading scripts for better films. Weaver has never looked more bored in a major production. She delivers her lines like the “now serving” voice at the DMV. Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal is rarely visible in the traditional sense. To be fair, that has long been part of how this character works. Pascal provides the voice, while performers including Brendan Wayne, Lateef Crowder, and Barry Lowin have often done the heavy lifting inside the armor.
“This is the Way” is the creed of the Mandalorian warrior clan, a solemn declaration of purpose. Having now seen this, I can say with certainty: this is NOT the way. It is aggressively fine, but not a chapter worthy of the Star Wars name. This feels more like the background entertainment you’d see while waiting in line for the newly updated “Millennium Falcon” ride at Disneyland.
05-21-26