The Mandalorian And Grogu: Critics Aren't Holding Back In First Reactions

It's been seven years since "Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker" made Rotten Tomatoes history in being the lowest-rated live-action Star Wars film on the platform. The franchise has survived via Disney+ series like "The Mandalorian," and now, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young ward Grogu are leaping from the small screen to a much bigger one. So what are the first "The Mandalorian and Grogu" reactions like? Let's get into the good, the bad, and the puppets.

The inital responses are all over the place, but let's start with the good. For many, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" is a solid return to form for Star Wars. Variety's Courtney Howard wrote on X, "['The Mandalorian and Grogu'] is a ton of fun! A perfect Summer movie. Action-packed with a lot of humor & heart." Critic Simon Thompson fell into the same pattern: "['The Mandalorian and Grogu'] is a grin-inducing crowd-pleaser that puts Star Wars back on theatrical track. Director Jon Favreau is (again) a safe pair of hands that deliver a solid, thrilling and engaging romp."

All of this should be good news to fans, especially those disappointed by "The Mandalorian" Season 3, when Looper rated the finale a score of 3/10. The focus is back on Djarin and Grogu getting into classic Western tropes, which should be enough for most diehard fans. But other critics haven't been as kind. 

Looking at online reaction, it seems like many are fine with the fact that "The Mandalorian and Grogu" plays like a return to the form of Season 1 of "The Mandalorian." For others, the film still feeling like a trimmed season of television is its biggest drawback. /Film's Bill Bria fell firmly in the negative camp: "Some cute moments can't save it from feeling terminally dull & offensively inoffensive. Feels like marathoning the blandest episodes of the show that are also totally inessential. A waste of time & potential."

Gizmodo's Germain Lussier also felt as though the film were trapped by its TV origins, calling it "a longer, bigger episode of the show. It has one or two stand out scenes but it feels much more interested in developing the story to new locations with new creatures than the characters." 

There have been both great and terrible movies based on TV shows. The best ones tend to be those that can transcend its nature as a smaller-scale story, but does "The Mandalorian and Grogu" achieve that? For FilmSpeak's Griffin Schiller, it could have been a TV season: "An inoffensive, technically impressive spectacle that's kinda a snooze fest. Very much structured like an abridged season of the tv show which unfortunately plays like watching the cutscenes of a Star Wars video game instead of playing one." It's one thing for a Star Wars movie to be bad; we've had those before. But to be boring would be a criminal offense. 

For what it's worth, Looper has also already seen "The Mandalorian and Grogu." That's in addition to watching the first 25 minutes a couple of weeks ago. A full review is coming, but it's a fairly harmless excursion with great action, where Grogu remains stalwart as the standout character. Take what you will from all of these "Mandalorian and Grogu" reactions, but folks still love the little dude. Collider's Perri Nemiroff summed up a lot of our feelings toward the most famous toddler in the galaxy: "I am just defenseless against Grogu." And The Hashtag Show's Joseph Deckelmeier was pleased with Grogu getting time to shine: "Seeing Grogu be the hero was great."

It seems to come down to what you want out of a big-screen Star Wars adventure. Yes, some critics were disappointed by how it felt like a TV show, but /Film's Peter Sciretta thinks that'll ultimately prove to be a positive for most. "More of an adventure of the week than a huge galactic event story," he wrote on X. "If you like the show you'll love this. If you didn't, you probably won't."

It may not be a home run for the grand return of Star Wars to cinemas. However, after the largely negative response to "Rise of Skywalker," LucasFilm will probably take what it can get.