Star Wars: The Mandalorian
and Grogu

4 outta 5

The Mandalorian and Grogu, a spin-off of the Disney Plus show, is fun and action packed. Very action packed. It is so action packed that the film is basically a constant string of action scenes that may be a bit wearying after a while. There are a few characters pulled from previous Star Wars shows that fans would notice but it totally works on its own as a self-contained adventure that doesn’t require any “homework”. It is a done-in-one adventure that deepens the relationship between the two title characters, which is kind of impressive as it’s a guy with a silver bucket on his head and a puppet.

Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is a bounty hunter known as the Mandalorian. He is helping the New Republic bring Imperial warlords to justice and travelling across the galaxy with his tiny green adopted alien son, Grogu. New Republic officer Ward (Sigourney Weaver) sends Mando on an assignment from the criminal Hutt twins to capture an evil Imperial warlord. They want Mando to retrive their nephew, Rotta (Jeremy Allen White), the son of the late Jabba. Mando finds Rotta working as a warrior in the fighting pits, but soon everything spirals out of control with Imperials, droid armies, Hutts and anxious mult-armed chef aliens voiced by Martin Scorsese. And this will stretch Mando and Grogu to their limit as the baby has to take care of his father.

A unique bond has developed between Din and Grogu over the course of three seasons in a minimal way. Din in a helmet doesn’t facially emote and Grogu doesn’t talk and his emoting and movement is very limited. The visual of Mando in silver and little Grogu hanging on his shoulder is striking. Whenever Grogu does something with the Force it makes the little green guy unpredictable; size matters not as he can take care of himself. Din emoting while wearing the helmet is a lot of nods and head movement and Pascal’s vocal performance has many shades. Three actors are credited for the Mandalorian: Pascal, Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, and it is a well-kept Hollywood Secret whenever Pascal is behind the helmet. In the scene when the Hutts remove Mando’s helmet, Pascal shows Din’s simmering rage as he says succinctly that since they saw his face, they all have to die.

The film is resolutely standalone, not following up on any plot threads from The Mandalorian or Ahsoka TV show. There’s nothing about the big cliff-hanger from the Ahsoka TV show finale and the only bit of story that is followed by the Mandalorian TV show is Din is working for the New Republic and has adopted Grogu as his child. There is Force healing that Grogu demonstrated on the TV show but Force healing was last seen in Rise of Skywalker. Fun fact: Force healing was first demonstrated on the TV show and then two days later it happened in Rise of Skywalker.

Some characters here were established before, such as Rotta the Hutt who goes back to the Clone Wars cartoon movie. He is way different here, in the cartoon he was just a tiny stinky Hutt baby and here he’s a giant jacked fighting Hutt. He is very emo about his life, which fits as there is a long history of emo moping by Star Wars protagonists. It is a little strange to see a Hutt that isn’t a blob that barely moves. Apparently Hutts have abs! The Twins were introduced in Book of Boba Fett they are very nasty, at one point threatening to torture their nephew for hundreds of years. They even take off Mando’s helmet which they know would dishonour him in Mandalorian culture. The Twins have their own bounty hunter, Embo, who was introduced in the Clone Wars animated series. He isn’t really a character, he’s more of an interesting visual design. There is kind of a cool bit when he captures Mando and just silently zaps him into submission. Also at the end of the film, the Twins beg for Embo’s help, and he just bounces which is pretty funny.

This movie is basically one action scene after another. The action is very impressive, like when Mando breaks onto an AT-AT and fights his way through a gaggle of Stormtroopers. There is a funny bit when Din is focusing on something else so Grogu rapidly batters him on the back of the helmet to get his attention. There is a lot of amusing moments throughout, any moment with Grogu and little gibberish talking aliens are a blast, or Martin Scorsese voicing the cook who doesn’t want anything to do with Mando and repeatedly tries to get Mando to leave. There’s another really fun bit when Grogu tries to hide an unconscious Mando inside shelter as he moves Mando with the Force and ends up clanking him on the helmet repeatedly. There are some great visuals like the droid army of refurbished droids from across the Star Wars saga. The film is very alien, as most Star Wars stories have a lot of humans. Mandalorian and Grogu is a fun adventure with the most endearingly unlikely father son pairings in Star Wars. Considering how often Star Wars parents and kids are attempting to murder each other, it is nice to see a parent and child care for each other.