I gave up on The Mandalorian after its second season because there is only so much time left in my life and I simply cannot spend all of it watching Star Wars. I’ll make an exception for a few things (I’ve got season two of Andor lined up for my next binge), but the exponential growth in the volume of material is just too much to bear. Disney did the same thing with Star Wars as it did with Marvel, and I think viewers, short of the most die hard fans among us, had to start being choosier about which pieces of the expansive narrative to consume. It’s just too much to manage, and as all of our favorite IPs fall victim to quantity over quality, it’s our best bet to risk missing something amazing in order to minimize wasting one’s time. Needless to say, the notion of a Mandalorian film was not enough to rekindle my once rabid love for all things Star Wars, so I was not particularly excited for The Mandalorian and Grogu. It’s with these lowered expectations that I found the film broadly enjoyable, beautiful to look at, and a lot of fun, even if it’s all pretty weightless.
Cinephiles are aware of Lone Wolf and Cub, the film series which chronicles the adventures of a traveling ronin and his infant companion as they march through the Japanese countryside getting into violent adventures. It serves as an obvious model for The Mandalorian — just swap out feudal samurai shit for space shit, swords for lasers, and a baby for a … baby Yoda.
These same cinephiles are certainly aware of Shogun Assassin, the feature length film which cuts together the best portions of the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films. The Mandalorian and Grogu is essentially the same thing. No, it’s not made of preexisting material, but it sure does feel like the suits at Disney Wars decided to take what would’ve been another season’s worth of scripts for the show, and trim then down to one feature length picture. It’s not the worst idea in the world, and as a guy who was never going to watch another season of the show, it’s ideal. It makes for a film with little filler, and a speedy pace. It’s an exercise in non-stop action and plot on plot on plot on plot.
On the other hand, the film provides very little breathing room for its story — it’s a textbook case of “and then and then and then and then.” It’s a perfectly linear duo of rescue adventures starring our titular characters, and it exists almost entirely separate from the Skywalker saga. This is refreshing for those of us who are sick of the main storyline, but the filmmakers don’t seem interested in starting any sort of new story either, lest they get too far from the Skywalker saga. It goes like this: Mando is hired to find an anonymous bad guy. Luckily for him, the heir to the Fett throne may have the key to his identity. Unluckily for him, said heir is being held prisoner in a faraway region of the galaxy. Should be a simple slash and grab, and it is, but those Hutts are real bastards, which complicates things.
And that’s it. That’s the movie.
Mando and Grogu end the film in the same place that they started, and in terms of the galaxy, not much has changed. The filmmakers pulled out their toys, played for a bit, and then put them away.
It’s only in hindsight, however, that the movie loses its charm. In the moment, it’s a rousing adventure tale with solid effects and creature work. It’s all set to a tremendous Ludwig Göransson score, which brings a digital flare to the sweeping orchestrations that the Star Wars universe is known for. Favreau knows how to direct an action scene, even if the IMAX screen isn’t so kind to a film that seems so blatantly shot-for-TV. Grogu is a delight, both cute and funny, while Pascal is hardly worth mentioning. He only has his helmet off for one scene, so it’s mostly a voice performance.
What a dream gig: The stuntman does all the work and gets none of the credit while Pascal works for about a week and walks away with millions.
At the end of the day, this movie is everything I needed it to be in order to call it a success (relative to very low expectations), but it’s also emblematic of what Star Wars has become: good enough, and pretty to look at. I know that in my recent piece where I excoriated Mortal Kombat II, I said I wouldn’t be so easy on this sort of thing anymore — and I won’t — but the difference here is that this film is at least competently made by people who do indeed seem to care about the final product (and I only had to tell the guy next to me to turn off his phone twice before he complied).
Directed by Jon Favreau
Written by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Noah Kloor
Starring Pedro Pascal, Pedro Pascal’s stuntman, Sigourney Weaver, Martin Scorsese
Rated PG-13, 132 minutes
