THE STORY – Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure.
THE CAST – Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, Brendan Wayne, Lateef Crowder, Steve Blum & Sigourney Weaver
THE TEAM – Jon Favreau (Director/Writer), Dave Filoni & Noah Kloor (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 132 Minutes
Everyone in the galaxy can recall their first encounter with “Star Wars.” George Lucas’s masterwork isn’t just a seminal gateway for many young audiences into the world of film, but also an introduction to pop culture as this ever-consuming societal entity. For myself, I will never forget the rainy weekend my father came home from a Blockbuster with rentals of the original trilogy for us to watch in rapid succession. The feeling of popping in those VHS tapes and being transported to worlds beyond the farthest reaches of my five-year-old imagination was unparalleled. Those memories are part of the reason for my adoration of film and why I’m here today. It’s that sensation that fans of the franchise have desperately held on to each time we step into a theater to see another adventure in a galaxy far, far away. So I can confidently say that that magical feeling was not only absent throughout the entirety of “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” boorish runtime, but the film may have been the final nail in the coffin of any hopes that this franchise can turn itself around.
Jon Favreau’s latest feature is more of a cinematic equivalent of dipping your toe in the pool to gauge the temperature than a wholly realized film. It’s a reclamation project to test whether “Star Wars,” an IP that once moved mountains, is even capable of bringing people back to theaters after former Disney CEO Bob Iger’s (successful) campaign to program audiences that “Star Wars” is something that should be watched in the comfort of our living rooms. Credit where it’s due, when “The Mandalorian” first aired, it was a breath of fresh air for the franchise, as Favreau and Dave Filoni, the apparent heir to Lucas himself, ushered in a debut season that capitalized on the universe’s expansiveness. The storytelling possibilities were limitless as the breakout series for Disney+, essentially adhering to a traditional episodic structure as if it were the sci-fi redux of “The Rifleman.” It was something many fans were dying to see, and the two creatives passed with flying colors.
Seasons later, as Filoni and Favreau have only embraced their worst tendencies as writers, sacrificing original storytelling for blowing the dust off the infinite toy chest of references to the animated series on which Filoni has previously worked. These creative decisions have resulted in “The Mandalorian” losing sight of what made it special, aside from Grogu’s staying power to melt the hearts of anyone who lays eyes on him. That’s why it’s concerning that even for a major summer release like “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” there is no sign that these two creatives have any interest in pivoting from what has worked for them so far. At least “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is confined to the parameters of the film itself, so audiences don’t have to catch up on seasons of television (including a few spinoffs) to understand what is transpiring on screen. The film, which presumably takes place after the third season, finds Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin and his little green companion clearing out remaining remnants of the Empire as freelancers for the New Republic. Mando’s desire to do work for the powers of good and to protect the Child has brought him to Sigourney Weaver’s Ward, the leader of The New Republic, who is in desperate need of the Mandalorian to rescue Jeremy Allen White’s Rotta the Hutt, the son of infamous crime lord Jabba the Hutt, in exchange for information on a high-value target. If that sounds like the plot of a previous episode, you’re not entirely wrong.
Nothing about “The Mandalorian and Grogu” feels worthy of gracing IMAX screens, as the film cannot escape the allegations that it is just a bunch of potential episodes for the series stitched together into a two-hour feature. What follows is the beat-for-beat cyclical storytelling that we have watched Favreau and Filoni do for the past few years. The Mandalorian and the Child arrive at a location. They proceed to ask locals for information. The pair gets into trouble, setting up hijinks that Grogu may stumble upon. All of these events lead to a climactic fight before the pair ride off into the sunset. If anything, this time around, Filoni and Favreau truly hone in on Lucas’s ability to write horrid prequel-level dialogue, as the bare-bones screenplay is merely a map for the action that transpires. The action itself is nothing of note as Favreau’s direction for spectacle is mundane, throwing audiences into the heat of indecipherable hand-to-hand combat sequences or CG-fueled calamity, leaving audiences wondering if there is a single practical thing about this film besides the puppetry.
Recently, Favreau spoke at the premiere of “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” proudly boasting about the film’s production, as it was filmed primarily in Los Angeles. While that is something to celebrate across the industry, with major productions happening in California for a “Star Wars” film, it’s all the more inconceivable. The whole shtick of “Star Wars” is the escapism that comes from filmmakers traveling to locations across the globe to make these movies. It’s that magic of being transported to alien worlds that makes us want to believe that a place like Tattoine is as real as Orlando, Florida. Here, every exotic locale Mando and Grogu appear in is nothing but a green-screen environment for our characters to walk through, with space for all the digital creations and action to be edited efficiently. There used to be a certain standard that those who were a part of a “Star Wars” film, even as disastrous as some of them may be, brought nothing but their best to it. Even Pascal’s performance is half-hearted, as his unconvincing ADR line readings only exert a level of disinterest that somehow matches his efforts in the last season. Even Pascal’s obligatory one moment of de-masking on set doesn’t have the same power as it once did, as his performance is far from his best work as Din Djarin and nowhere near as effective as what Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder are doing with the majority of their physical work to create this character without a quarter of the praise.
Allen White, who is shockingly second-billed, is also not given much to work with in his dialogue, which laughably spells out every feeling or thought in his mind. It’s also the avenue for seeing the Hutt family speak the most English they’ve ever spoken in a “Star Wars” project, thanks to having someone of Allen White’s caliber voicing the character. Weaver is more of a glorified guest character as she is only there to feed the audience the exposition needed to set the story in motion. If anything, the best performance in “The Mandalorian and Grogu” isn’t even a living actor, but the puppetry team that brings Grogu to life. There’s a sequence where Favreau embraces the inherent pulpy-ness of “Star Wars” and dedicates a section where Grogu, alongside a few Anzelans, is wandering around in an attempt to save Din Djarin. It’s by far the most childlike yet memorable moment of the film, harkening back to “Return of the Jedi” levels of sentimentality. It’s charming and all, but a smokescreen for the rest of the film that can’t even muster up a smile without having to default to Grogu’s winsomeness.
Even Ludwig Göransson’s score, besides a few synth-based tracks layered with 808s, isn’t immune to defaulting to the greatest hits of motifs from “The Mandalorian.” While that theme is by far one of the greatest works of his career, hearing Favreau repeatedly cue the theme every other scene is enough to get one a bit sick of hearing it. As a whole, it’s hard to believe that not only was “The Rise of Skywalker” the last “Star Wars” film to grace the big screen, but that it’s been seven years since it was released. Now, the franchise is at a tipping point, and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is debatably a coin toss between the remnants of the Kathleen Kennedy-era of Lucasfilm and the launch of Filoni’s creative reign. What’s present here is one of the most visually horrid and banal “Star Wars” creations to date. Is the allure of getting children in a theater to see Grogu enough to keep this franchise afloat and, more importantly, on the big screen? Who’s to say, but if it’s any indication of what the next decade of storytelling for the “Star Wars” universe will be, then we’re in deep trouble.
