After three series of television, director Jon Favreau brings the adventures of a bounty hunter from a galaxy far, far away to the big screen. Space-western Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu sees Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his little green apprentice working for the New Republic, hunting down criminals linked with the Galactic Empire. Commander Ward (Sigourney Weaver) assigns them a mission to rescue Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) from planet Shakari and bring warlord Janu Coin (Jonny Coyne) to justice.
Originally planned as the fourth series but transformed into a feature, it’s no surprise that the film has an episodic structure. This gives the narrative a familiar rhythm, broken up into low-stakes quests as Mando goes about his business whilst keeping his adorable sidekick out of trouble; the puppeteering work in operating Grogu is great and there’s an enjoyable stretch where we witness him going solo whilst his master is recovering from an attack. As we’ve come to expect from the Star Wars universe, the production and set design is aesthetically pleasing, particularly during the sequence in the Blade Runner-esque neon landscape of Shakari. That being said, the CGI-heavy action scenes aren’t entirely worthy of the silver screen, playing out like a special episode of TV rather than a cinematic spectacle.
Between The Last of Us, Fantastic Four, Eddington, and many more, we have seen a lot of Pascal in recent years and he’s running the risk of becoming overexposed. With others performing in the suit and doing stunts for this role, he’s essentially left with some minimal voice work to phone in. Sigourney Weaver gives a tired supporting turn and Jeremy Allen White provides vocals for Rotta but by taking inspiration from his character’s crimelord father Jabba from the OG trilogy, it might as well have been anyone doing the impersonation. The only cast member with a dose of charisma is legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese who cameos as a shopkeeper – in an amusingly nice touch, his Ardennian alien-alias sports his recognisable expressive eyebrows.
It’s been almost seven years since the sequel trilogy reached its disappointing climax so passionate fans of the franchise will welcome another cinema outing. Jon Favreau’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu might not deliver much in the way of wow factor, but if you want a mini-series packaged into a solid enough standalone, then this is the way.
Cinema Perspective 