MOVIE
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
Director Jon Favreau
Review Ray Chan
Jon Favreau’s cinematic rendition of the next Star Wars
chapter — The Mandalorian and Grogu — is less a bold leap to the big screen
than a lovingly stitched-together remix album of the Disney+ series’ greatest
hits.
Entire stretches feel as though they could have been expanded from abandoned episodic plots: the protagonist Din Djarin trudging through another dusty settlement, Grogu stealing food while staring soulfully into the middle distance, and assorted alien weirdos turning up for quests that seem designed mainly to get Pedro Pascal from one effects showcase to the next.
Yet somehow, against the odds, it mostly works. This is the way.
The film’s greatest strength is its visual imagination. The special effects are superb throughout, finally giving the franchise the epic scale that television budgets could only hint at.
Giant alien beasts snarl, slither and stampede above ground and in water with convincing weight. One sequence involving assorted reptilian monsters in a pit feels gloriously reminiscent of classic Star Wars creature-feature chaos, and the film wisely understands that audiences will happily forgive storytelling repetition if they are shown enough bizarre wildlife trying to eat somebody.
Grogu remains an irresistibly marketable little gremlin. The movie leans heavily into his comic timing, and while some viewers may tire of the endless cooing and reaction shots, the character still earns genuine laughs simply by waddling around causing low-level havoc.
Pascal, meanwhile, continues the tradition of acting intensely through a helmet while sounding mildly exhausted … or is it a stand-in? One wonders how many of the scenes actually feature Hollywood’s resident daddy thespian, whose face is only shown briefly.
Not everything lands. The script echoes better moments from the television show without quite matching them emotionally.
Action scenes arrive with dependable regularity, but few feel especially consequential. And an interlude between those arcs, when Grogu has to help an injured Djarin, breaks up the narrative thrust so much it feels like a different movie.
And then there are the accents. For a galaxy supposedly filled with exotic species and ancient civilizations, an alarming number of extraterrestrials sound as though they just wandered in from the Bronx.
The worst offender is the Rotta the Hutt, son of Jabba — the slug-like villain who tormented Princess Leia — and who Djarin is commissioned to track down. His astonishingly thick American accent, courtesy of The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White, makes him sound less like an intergalactic crime prince and more like somebody loudly ordering ribs at an American sports bar. It’s difficult to maintain mystical space-opera grandeur when Jabba’s offspring sounds ready to sell used pickup trucks on local television.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
Director Jon Favreau
Review Ray Chan
Entire stretches feel as though they could have been expanded from abandoned episodic plots: the protagonist Din Djarin trudging through another dusty settlement, Grogu stealing food while staring soulfully into the middle distance, and assorted alien weirdos turning up for quests that seem designed mainly to get Pedro Pascal from one effects showcase to the next.
Yet somehow, against the odds, it mostly works. This is the way.
The film’s greatest strength is its visual imagination. The special effects are superb throughout, finally giving the franchise the epic scale that television budgets could only hint at.
Giant alien beasts snarl, slither and stampede above ground and in water with convincing weight. One sequence involving assorted reptilian monsters in a pit feels gloriously reminiscent of classic Star Wars creature-feature chaos, and the film wisely understands that audiences will happily forgive storytelling repetition if they are shown enough bizarre wildlife trying to eat somebody.
Grogu remains an irresistibly marketable little gremlin. The movie leans heavily into his comic timing, and while some viewers may tire of the endless cooing and reaction shots, the character still earns genuine laughs simply by waddling around causing low-level havoc.
Pascal, meanwhile, continues the tradition of acting intensely through a helmet while sounding mildly exhausted … or is it a stand-in? One wonders how many of the scenes actually feature Hollywood’s resident daddy thespian, whose face is only shown briefly.
Not everything lands. The script echoes better moments from the television show without quite matching them emotionally.
Action scenes arrive with dependable regularity, but few feel especially consequential. And an interlude between those arcs, when Grogu has to help an injured Djarin, breaks up the narrative thrust so much it feels like a different movie.
And then there are the accents. For a galaxy supposedly filled with exotic species and ancient civilizations, an alarming number of extraterrestrials sound as though they just wandered in from the Bronx.
The worst offender is the Rotta the Hutt, son of Jabba — the slug-like villain who tormented Princess Leia — and who Djarin is commissioned to track down. His astonishingly thick American accent, courtesy of The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White, makes him sound less like an intergalactic crime prince and more like somebody loudly ordering ribs at an American sports bar. It’s difficult to maintain mystical space-opera grandeur when Jabba’s offspring sounds ready to sell used pickup trucks on local television.
All things considered though, The Mandalorian and Grogu
delivers enough charm, spectacle, wonderfully grotesque creature mayhem, as well as enough
recurring characters to satisfy fans of the series.
It may not expand the mythology in meaningful ways, but it understands exactly what audiences came for: shiny armour, cute puppetry, laser blasts, and behemoths and beasts with far too many teeth.
It may not expand the mythology in meaningful ways, but it understands exactly what audiences came for: shiny armour, cute puppetry, laser blasts, and behemoths and beasts with far too many teeth.
#starwars #mandalorianandgrogu
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