Never mind the far, far away part, it’s certainly been a long time since the galaxy spanning adventures of Star Wars appeared on the big screen. In fact, it’s been around seven years since The Rise Of Skywalker made its bow and subsequently put the cinematic arm of the franchise in carbon freeze due to its divisive reception. Of course since then the franchise has made the small screen it’s new home, regaling us with more, varied, Star Wars content than you can wave a lightsaber at – but for every Andor, Book Of Boba Fett and Ahsoka series we got, there still was this pang that the franchise wasn’t operating from its natural home: a cinema screen the size of a Star Destroyer.
Well, aiming to change all that is the double team of The Mandalorian & Grogu who are bypassing a fourth season to make the jump to lightspeed to cinemas in a measured and rather safe attempt to bring Star Wars back home. But can even the cute offensive that comes with the world-conquering “Baby Yoda” manage to make the franchise’s big screen come back feel anything more than just an extended episode?
When last we left Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin and his errant adopted son, Grogu, he’d vowed to work for the still-fragile New Republic in a will-hunt-Imperials-for-cash capacity. It seems that the business of fragging remnants of the Empire is pretty good and after racking up another win, Commander Ward sets him up for his next mission. But while the previous search and eliminate jobs have been fairly straightforward (AT-ATs notwithstanding), this one will prove to be a little more complex.
The next warlord that Mando has to find is one named Coin, but the catch is that no one knows what the guy looks like and the only way to score the intel is to do the bidding of the nefarious Hutt Twins. However, for them to play ball and cough up the intel, the Mandalorian and Grogu will have to rescue their nephew, Rotta The Hutt, who is being held by a criminal syndicate.
The reason that Rotta is so valuable is that he’s the son of the late, infamous gangster Jabba The Hutt, but when Djarin arrives on the planet Shakari to perform his rescue mission, he soon discovers that things aren’t what they seem. Before you know it, both he and his adorable green tyke are thrown into a succession series (some might say episodic) of adventures that sees them fight for their lives against a string of foes that are all shapes and sizes. But even if Mando can muscle their way past a disturbingly ripped Rotta, an alien fighting pit, a mysterious bounty hunter with a peculiar line in hat wear and whatever nefarious double cross the Twins presumably have in store, can he possibly guarantee the safety of his little charge and his near-endless appetite for both mischief and snackies?
There’s a sense that the knives will be out for The Mandalorian And Grogu no matter how good or bad it ends up being and that’s not just because Star Wars has one of the most hostile fan bases in history. One of the main worries about the show’s transference to the big screen is that the powers that be are playing things way too safe by making the franchise’s belated return to cinemas essentially a feature length episode. Honestly, it’s a fear that proves to be well founded as the hugely episodic and insanely long film is broken up into various sections so distinct you can virtually see where the episode breaks would take place. One minutes our heroes are playing chicken with looming Imperial Walkers on a hostile ice planet, the next Mando is beating all kinds of Bantha scat out of a selection of aliens that look suspiciously familiar if you payed close attention to that iconic chess game in Millennium Falcon back in ’77. From there we get some much needed down time on Nevarro, before a hefty final act sees our title stars embark on yet more action setpieces on Nal Hutta, but if director Jon Favreau and newly minted Star Wars head honcho, Dave Filoni had streamlined their story telling a bit, we could have got a return to Star Wars that could have been twice as effective with only half the effort.
Less problematic, but surely to piss off spoilsports is the fact that The Mandalorian And Grogu fully embraces George Lucas’ repeated insistence that Star Wars is for kids. But while the movie makes good and varied use of its little, doe-eyed sidekick (watching Grogu go native on Nal Hutta and embrace his inner Dagobah to protect his dear old dad is genuinely glorious), it replays the old Grogu-is-hungry joke over and over again. In fact, Favreau may need to get his memory checked, because he also includes multiple instances of Mando trapped in a fighting area and endless sequences of him battling CGI beasties (including Jeremy Allen White’s rather dour Rotta), which add a fairly repetitive feel to the film.
However, this is undeniably Star Wars and despite all the issues I had with this glorified, extended episode, there’s nothing else that engages your inner twelve year old faster than spending time in this world. Yes, Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin (or, should I say, his masked suit performer) is in desperate need of a proper character arc, but it’s more than made up by the fact that we’re watching little Grogu slowly mature in front of our very eyes. In fact, while supporters of the hyper realistic politics of Andor may be disgruntled that the main character of the film is a little green baby, but Favreau is definitely shooting for the adventure aspects of the franchise and you certainly get your money’s worth. Also, while easter eggs from various eras fly at you thick and fast (prepare to weather an assault of lesser used creatures, vehicles and characters that’ll have super nerds repeatedly jabbing their digits at the screen – hi Embo), composer Ludwig Göransson goes all out to provide a score that frequently expands what a Star Wars soundtrack can be.
Whether this heralds a new and sustained cinematic run of Star Wars movies will remain to be seen, after all no one can hamstring Star Wars more decisively than Star Wars fans, but for all it’s faults, The Mandalorian And Grogu does frequently provide the exact kind of thrills that only a galaxy far, far away can provide. Yes, it’s skewed young – despite featuring a surprising amount of graphic immolations – but when baby Grogu is allowed to cook, its impossible not to still be utterly enthralled at the little fella while the puppeteers breathing life into him are working overtime. And if that doesn’t impress you, how about a Phil Tippett stop-motion sequence or the sight of Sigourney Weaver flying an X-Wing?
It may be more Solo than Rogue One, but that doesn’t mean that the big screen bow of The Mandalorian And Grogu fails to deliver. In fact, when judged purely on the familiarity of the franchise, there’s enough here to make you thrilled to be back in a universe of twanging laser blasts and iconic aliens. However, anyone looking for anything deeper than high flying, rollicking adventure may find matters are about as deep as a puddle on Tatooine and if Star Wars manages to get a big screen reprieve it so badly deserves, it needs to get a little more daring than this.
This is the way. Mostly.
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