The Mandalorian & Grogu
600 words
For the longest time, I didn’t know how to begin this review. It needed a headline. But the only thing newsworthy about The Mandalorian & Grogu is that I didn’t hate it. And aside from Rogue One, I hated all the other Disney Star Wars movies.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t recommend this film. I will never watch it again. And I wish I could get back the more than 2 hours I spent watching it. (It seemed closer to 3.) But I didn’t hate it. I’m just completely indifferent.
And for a reviewer, indifference is worse than hatred. Indeed, as a reviewer, I find bad movies inspiring. It is fun to hate on Disney Star Wars products:
I liked season 1 of Andor, thought season 1 of The Mandalorian had promise, had mixed feelings about season 1 of Ashoka, and didn’t bother reviewing the rest of Andor and The Mandalorian, as well as The Book of Boba Fett, The Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew.
My vitriolic reviews going back ten years now to The Force Awakens actually helped inspire a vast sphere of YouTube commentators who have made a business of mocking Disney Stars Wars. At a certain point, the anti-woke reviews became more artful than the products they were trashing.
I believe that a decade of relentless online mockery of woke Star Wars finally broke someone’s spirit at Disney, because The Mandalorian & Grogu seems to go out of its way not to offend, dialing back the wokeness to the level of George Lucas’ originals, which seem reactionary by contemporary standards.
Sadly, although there’s nothing to offend here, there’s precious little to enjoy.
It’s a movie for kids, but it is too long, boring, and violent for kids.
Basically, The Mandalorian & Grogu plays like several episodes of the TV series stitched into a movie, which means that the plot is not tightly integrated, and the pacing drags.
This should have been more of a stand-alone story. The movie assumes that you have watched the series. But I lost interest in the series rather quickly. In fact, I had no idea who “Grogu” was. Last time I tuned in, we were all calling him “Baby Yoda.” Thus I felt like I stumbled into a fan convention and was being forced to endure the inside jokes of sniggering nerds.
Beyond that, to translate these characters to the big screen, they needed a much grander plot, not just one pulpy rescue and fight scene after another.
The Mandalorian & Grogu has cool designs, striking special effects, some well-choreographed fights, and excellent music by Ludwig Göransson. But none of that matters without an interesting plot, a tight script, and a sense of pacing. Apparently, they just didn’t have room in their $165 million budget for such frippery.
There’s also a shocking level of sloppiness in this movie. In one scene the Mandalorian, stripped of his helmet and weapons, is fighting for his life against monsters with improvised weapons. Two scenes later, he pulls out a blaster. Where did that come from? And are we really to believe that the Hutts would down the ship of a gun runner near their home, then just leave it there, air worthy and with all its inventory intact?
Disney is pulling out the stops selling toys of The Mandalorian & Grogu’s characters, monsters, droids, ships, etc. The ten-year-old boys who end up buying this stuff will probably come up with better stories on their own.
That Best of Trevor Lynch book cover is epic!