“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” released on May 22, is the first “Star Wars” movie to debut in theaters since “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019. It follows the story of the titular Mandalorian and his adopted son Grogu — who is better known to many fans as Baby Yoda. A sequel to the Disney+-exclusive series “The Mandalorian,” the movie delivers a CGI-filled, action-packed adventure, but it lacks the stakes and drama expected from its previous television series.
Pedro Pascal stars as the Mandalorian, beginning the movie as a heroic bounty hunter who works for the New Republic by hunting down imperial war criminals. By the end of the movie, he is still a heroic bounty hunter who works for the New Republic by hunting down imperial war criminals — and therein lies a lot of the movie’s problems.
The two protagonists go through a long and winding adventure, but over the course of it, neither of them really change or grow. To some degree, the movie is about Grogu taking action into his own hands and saving his father, but since he has no dialogue and is little more than an adorable puppet, it’s hard to appreciate any depth to his character.
This problem is shared by many of the other characters. The movie brings on a star-studded cast, but many of the actors, including Martin Scorsese and Jeremy Allen White, provide only the voice for characters brought to life entirely by CGI. Nonetheless, White’s performance as Rotta the Hutt does bring a bit of heart into the film, as Pascal’s Mandalorian is forced to decide whether to fulfill his mission and send Rotta to his death or spare the Hutt’s life.
The movie certainly does not fail in the visual department. Directed by Jon Favreau, who co-created “The Mandalorian” series, the movie’s props and CGI manage to bring back the nostalgic feel from the original movies in the “Star Wars” franchise. Unlike some previous “Star Wars” entries, the movie is spared any CGI recreations of the original cast. Instead, it features smaller references: the X-wing spaceship visuals at the end are identical to ones at the end of the original “Star Wars,” and some of the bizarre creatures the Mandalorian faces are pulled from the chessboard played aboard the original Millennium Falcon.
As the first “Star Wars” movie in seven years, it’s hard not to see the film as a squandered opportunity. With a self-contained story that follows a complex adventure with no impact on the greater world of “Star Wars” or even its characters, it seems to fit better in “The Mandalorian” television series than in the cinema. It hints at the possibility that it might kill off the main character, but never does, and that’s the extent of the movie’s stakes. “Star Wars” still has the capacity to make audiences care about its characters — the massive critical success of the TV show “Andor” last year proved that — but this movie fails to live up to that potential.
“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” remains a fun adventure movie, polished enough that it’s not hard to watch by any means. Whether it was worthy of its theatrical release, however, is arguable — it might have been less disappointing as yet another CGI-filled adventure in the large catalogue of “Star Wars” content on Disney+.
