Review: 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' Is Little More Than Big-Screen TV

This is the way... I struggled with my review of The Mandalorian and Grogu, which hits theaters this weekend:

Does one evaluate it as a bona fide Star Wars movie, or as simply an XL installment of the Disney+ series that sired it?

The Mandalorian and Grogu is theatrical in scale, and its budget ($165 million by some accounts) far exceeds the roughly $50 million that a similar 132 minutes of the TV show would cost.

On the flip side, the story it tells could have been a terrific, albeit pricey, multi-episode arc of The Mandalorian. There is nothing space opera about it.

Though a fan of The Mandalorian, my expectations for Season 3's big-screen follow-up, well over two years in the making, were "medium-low." From the moment the project was announced, I had concerns about a big-screen Star Wars project relying on the StageCraft (immersive LED backdrops) technology that Disney+'s live-action series routinely employ instead of practical sets.

And far more recently, the trailers fell flat for me.

In The Mandalorian and Grogu, the titular bounty hunter and apprentice have been helping the New Republic hunt warlords of the fallen Empire. After tracking their latest bounty, they return to Adelphi Base — glimpsed in The Mandalorian Season 3's "The Pirate" — where Sigourney Weaver's Colonel Ward entices Mando with a found and refurbished Razor Crest. In trade, he is asked to procure valuable intel by doing a solid for the Hutt Twins (see TV's The Book of Boba Fett, I suppose), and that means rescuing their kidnapped son Rotta. Mando begrudgingly agrees, and the rote mission is promptly hampered by multiple complications that fuel a variety of action-packed set pieces.

With so many action sequences, it's fitting and proper that stunt doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder — who, like franchise front man Pedro Pascal, also play Din Djarin — receive second and third billing in the film's opening credits. (Simply said, Wayne tends to handle the helmeted gunplay, while Crowder's expertise is fight scenes.)

The Mandalorian and Grogu, directed by Jon Favreau and cowritten by Favreau, recently promoted Lucasfilm CCO Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor, makes some odd, at-times frustrating choices.

One is that other than Din and Colonel Ward, human characters of consequence are scarce. Grogu fka Baby Yoda, brought to life via a brilliant blend of animatronics and CGI, is of a famously unnamed species; Zeb Orellios (voiced again by Star Wars: Rebels' Steve Blum), who helps pilot the Razor Crest, is a hulking purple Lasat; Martin Scorsese voices a four-armed Ardennian; and the other major characters are either Hutts or Anzellan mechanics.

Jonny Coyne, reprising his blink-and-you-missed it role from The Mandalorian Season 3's "The Spies" (his warlord was among Moff Gideon's Shadow Council), is the only other human Mando meaningfully, yet barely, interacts with. The menagerie of creatures rendered by CGI animation, puppetry and stop-motion animation is impressive, for sure, but I found myself at times craving a human for Mando to talk to. Carl Weathers passed away well before filming began, but his Greef Karga is not so much as mentioned; neither are Amy Sedaris' Pelli Motto, Emily Swallow's Armorer... or any other human we've met before. The movie exists in this liminal space that, save for one fleeting line of dialogue, mines no established series lore, references no previous human connections.

Other curious calls:

• When Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) was announced as the voice of Rotta, I shrugged. Like, does it matter who's gargling out guttural Huttese? Oh, but Rotta — unlike dad Jabba, or the Twins — speaks perfect English/Basic, as if he went to finishing school on Coruscant. You know how Tom Holland's character in trailer for The Odyssey has drawn fire for his very American line reading? Imagine him saying most introspectively as a swole slug, "Do you know how hard it is to be your own man when your dad is Jabba the Hutt?"
• I've seen some effuse about the synth-y score by Ludwig Göransson, whereas for me it was giving, "Let's try the Andor thing, but by way of the first Terminator film."
• Don't get me started on why a full-sized, lumbering AT-AT would be the transport of choice for a snowy canyon's narrow ledge. It didn't make sense in the trailer, even less so with context.

I've barely mentioned franchise poster child Grogu. For the first stretch of the film, he is around but gets surprisingly few "Aww, isn't he adorable!" moments. Midway through, though, Din's adopted son takes charge of the narrative in a way that's effective and moving, while the Anzellans and their chittered Anzell-glish remains a riot.

Ultimately, I came to appreciate that The Mandalorian and Grogu is an unabashed, kid-targeted popcorn movie, pitting our heroes against all manner of vividly conceived creatures in thrilling sequences. As such, it just might prove to be a Force at the box office. My understanding from those who prognosticate about such things is that its performance, as a TV offshoot and the first Star Wars film in more than six years, won't be judged against any of the entries in the three trilogies, but, say, Solo: A Star Wars Story. And The Mandalorian and Grogu, though not without its shortcomings, is a far more fun time than that origin tale.

I have spoken.