The Mandalorian And Grogu Review: This Is Not The Way

"The Mandalorian and Grogu" is not the worst Star Wars movie. There are no offensive ethnic stereotype aliens like in "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace," it won't inspire nightmares about Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) having sex like "Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker," and it won't trigger fits of madness like any prolonged exposure to "The Star Wars Holiday Special." What it is, however, is the least essential theatrical live-action Star Wars movie.

Yes, that's including "Solo: A Star Wars Story," the first full-on flop in the franchise. That prequel was unnecessary, but at least it had a fun, somewhat fresh middle act with Donald Glover's young Lando and his robot girlfriend L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) fighting for droid rights. "The Mandalorian and Grogu" has moments of fun but almost nothing fresh. It's just a lengthy episode of "The Mandalorian" Disney+ series, and neither a good one nor one with much narrative importance.

I get the thought process of how this became the first new Star Wars movie in seven years. The people at Lucasfilm were clearly freaked by the increasingly divisive response to the sequel trilogy and wanted their return to theaters to be as safe as possible. "The Mandalorian" successfully boiled down the franchise's base appeal to "masked warrior with Muppet baby," so turning to that streaming hit as the basis for a film made sense. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's recent struggles proved the limits of balancing continuity between movies and TV, so effort was made to get the movie to stand alone without needing to have seen the show. They needed this movie to please everyone, and yeah, some of the adorable Grogu aka Baby Yoda scenes might just do the trick. But in trying to be for everyone, too much of "The Mandalorian and Grogu" turns into a bland mush.

So what is the plot of "The Mandalorian and Grogu," exactly? I don't blame you if you aren't really sure from the trailers. Turns out there's not much plot to speak of. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is now working for the New Republic to hunt down the remaining Imperial leaders. Here, he's basically on a side quest: free Jabba's son Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) from imprisonment on Shakari and bring him to the Hutt homeworld of Nal Hutta in exchange for information on one of those Imperials. Said Imperial turns out to be awfully easy to find without that information exchange, so a predictable double-cross happens leading to some fights. Grogu is also there and sometimes helpful. That's the whole movie.

This simple story could have made an entertaining episode of "The Mandalorian." Maybe a passable two-parter. As a movie, it feels dragged out, and my main reaction is "... that's it?" It's fine to keep things simple, especially after how "The Mandalorian" Season 3 got bogged down in lore. But when you make a big movie out of a TV show, I want there to be something special, and "The Mandalorian and Grogu" fails to justify itself as a big screen experience.

I realize it's pointless to complain about a Star Wars installment having bad dialogue; "Andor" spoiled us, but that series was the exception to the rule. Still, I find the problems with Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor's script particularly annoying. It's extremely repetitive, spelling out everything in the most obvious way. Is it doing this for viewers half-paying attention while streaming it on Disney+? Or is it the opposite, to make sure people who don't have Disney+ are following along? Is it an attempt to dumb an already simplistic story down for young children, and if so, why is the movie PG-13?

It would be one thing if the film was style over substance, but there's not much style here either. "The Mandalorian" impressively brought cinematic effects to TV, but even in IMAX, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" doesn't feel like enough of a big screen upgrade. While there are some visually impressive moments (the stop-motion droids animated by the legendary Phil Tippett are a standout), the cinematography is often too dark and dull to make out (at least one fight had me thinking "this might be cool if I could see what was happening"), and much of the CGI recalls the uglier excesses of the prequels. The one consistent bright spot is the score; composer Ludwig Göransson continues to nail this part of the galaxy's musical identity that's completely distinct from the old John Williams themes.

My problems with "The Mandalorian and Grogu" can be summed up by the fact that I simply do not like Rotta the Hutt. I know the "Clone Wars" cartoon already had English-speaking Hutts, but it still sounds weird to me, and Jeremy Allen White can't bring any life or personality to his dumbed-down repetitive dialogue. It looks wrong seeing Grogu, who is always either a puppet or animated to look just like a puppet, interact with Rotta, who looks like CGI from 2004. Dave Filoni desperately wants to make this particular Glup Shitto the next big thing, to the point he has his other Glup Shitto Zeb (Steve Blum) announce "I like this kid!" to give the seal of approval. It doesn't work.

"The Mandalorian and Grogu" is at its most charming when it's focused on its second title character. Of course the Muppet movie antics between Grogu and some Anzellans (Babu Frik's species) are adorable! A sequence late in the film where Grogu has to act more independently has the film's one nice thematic idea and the closest it gets to an emotional response. If the scene's visual storytelling rhythms weren't interrupted by ever more annoying obvious dialogue from another CG alien, it might almost be enough to redeem the emptiness of everything else.

You can add a point or two to my review score if you treat this as just a long, fairly minor episode of the TV show. But this movie is meant to revitalize Star Wars in theaters, so its being judged on that scale. These movies have always had risk and ambition, at their best and at their worst, so something so bereft of that can't help but feel a bit disheartening, not to mention boring.

"The Mandalorian and Grogu" opens in theaters May 22.