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Matt Glasby

3/5 stars
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars films were major events. But since George Lucas sold the franchise to Disney in 2012, there have been five variable-quality big-screen outings, innumerable television shows and spin-offs, and this strange hybrid.
Intended as season four of The Mandalorian, the material has been retooled into a stand-alone movie, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Directed by series creator Jon Favreau, and co-written by Favreau, Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, the film follows bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal, plus stunt team) and his apprentice Grogu on another adventure.


This time, they are ordered by New Republic Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) to rescue rogue space slug Rotta the Hutt (voiced by The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White), son of Jabba, although they soon find themselves tangling with his evil relatives, the Hutt twins.
An exciting opening scene sees Mando and Grogu breaking into a snowy mountain stronghold, then taking down a platoon of AT-ATs as they escape. To be fair to Favreau and co, they probably could not have mounted such a sequence on a television budget, even a Disney one.
After this early high point, it is very much business as usual, with Mando hopping from planet to planet, encountering CG characters – including an Ardennian alien voiced by director Martin Scorsese – and some old Star Wars favourites.

Rotta, who is working as a gladiator for powerful gangster Lord Janu (Jonny Coyne), even has some franchise-appropriate father issues. A fight between Mando, Rotta and a pack of Stranger Things-style beasties looks for all the world like a game of Dejarik – holographic chess – from 1977’s A New Hope.
Although lovingly shot by David Klein and energetically scored by Ludwig Göransson, there are some major stumbling blocks. The CGI for Rotta is not much better than 1997’s much-derided Special Edition Jabba, and White’s anonymous performance barely rises above a grumpy teen.
Grogu, meanwhile, is adorable, but he has very little to do until a solo sequence that stops the film in its tracks. Elsewhere, there is no sense that Mando and Grogu are part of a wider story – no room for myth-making, just making do.
It is as if Lucas’s original intention for the franchise – to create a Flash Gordon-style serial – has finally come to pass. But for all the flaws of his later Star Wars movies, at least they grappled with big ideas.

Never less than entertaining – but never anything more either – The Mandalorian and Grogu leaves you wondering who it is actually made for.
Too violent for small children, and too cute for teenagers, it speeds along frictionlessly from shiny set piece to set piece before leaving our heroes, unchanged, back where they started. It is a bit like television, then.
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Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian in a still from Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd

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Star Wars fans may find The Mandalorian and Grogu an entertaining watch but it lacks real depth and feels more like a TV episode than a film


Star Wars fans may find The Mandalorian and Grogu an entertaining watch but it lacks real depth and feels more like a TV episode than a film.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Star Wars fans may find The Mandalorian and Grogu an entertaining watch but it lacks real depth and feels more like a TV episode than a film

Star Wars fans may find The Mandalorian and Grogu an entertaining watch but it lacks real depth and feels more like a TV episode than a film