The Mandalorian and Grogu
Directed by Jon Favreau
My rating: 3¾ of 5 stars
My step-daughter gifted me the ticket. She knows I am a fan of old-school Star Wars and figured I'd appreciate the excuse to go. She was right. To be honest, after The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, I have felt like Disney Star Wars has something to prove to me. The good news is that I just needed a good seat for them to show me the proof.
Favreau and Filoni earned real goodwill with the first two seasons of The Mandalorian on Disney+. They took a franchise that had lost its footing and reminded everyone what Star Wars could feel like when the people making it cared about character. Season three was uneven. The show spread itself thin and lost the intimacy that made the early episodes work. But the foundation they built was solid. I walked in with that history in mind.
The movie delivers. However, if you read the critical reception, you'd think that was somehow a problem.
The complaints run together after a while. Too simple. Low stakes. Doesn't advance the larger story. My answer to each: that was the design. This film wasn't built to carry franchise weight. It was built to spend two hours with characters audiences already love and give those characters something worth doing. Judging it against The Empire Strikes Back is like penalizing a relief pitcher for not throwing nine innings. He came in, threw strikes, and did the job he was asked to do.
The sequel trilogy is worth a brief detour, because the contrast matters. Those three films were genuinely trying to move the story forward, to land a forty-year franchise, to satisfy an impossible set of competing demands. Together they felt like a franchise committee that couldn't agree on a direction. The seams showed badly. The Mandalorian & Grogu carries none of that. It knows what it is.
Pedro Pascal plays Din Djarin with the same constrained warmth that made the first two seasons work. Favreau pushed him further here, and the physicality shows. Where Din Djarin operates from stillness and economy, the Hutt Twins fill every room they're in. Jabba's cousins, massive and imperious, they operate from a palace on Nal Hutta with the casual cruelty of people who have never once doubted their own importance. Their scheme is a double-cross layered inside a favor. They send Mando to rescue Rotta while planning to have him deliver the boy straight into a trap. When that unravels, they don't rage. They pivot to humiliation, forcing Din's helmet off in front of his captors because they know exactly what it costs him. It's a deliberate act, and it hits harder knowing that Season 3 was largely about Din redeeming himself for a previous helmet removal. That's smart villain writing. They're not just obstacles. They understand their enemy well enough to hurt him in the right place.
Favreau built the entire film for the largest available screen, designing shots using an Apple Vision Pro app that simulated the full IMAX aspect ratio on set. It shows. AT-ATs on an ice planet. A gladiator pit on Nal Hutta. Over half the film expands to fill the IMAX frame, and those are the sequences that justify the trip to the theater. Then there's Sigourney Weaver. She plays Colonel Ward, a former Rebel Alliance fighter pilot now operating inside the New Republic, and she hadn't even watched the show before Favreau called. She watched it, fell in love with it, and signed on. That matters. Weaver built her career on the best science fiction has produced: Alien, Avatar, Galaxy Quest. Serious actors don't attach themselves to projects they don't believe in. Favreau knew exactly what her presence would signal. When someone with that résumé shows up in your Star Wars movie, it tells the audience that the people making it are trying to get things right.
The part that stayed with me came in the second act, when Mando is poisoned, and Grogu takes over.
Three seasons of television, four if you count The Book of Boba Fett, built on one dynamic: the Mandalorian protects the child. Din Djarin finds Grogu, loses him, gets him back, and spends most of the series putting himself between that small green creature and everything trying to harm him. Then Mando takes a wound from a Dragonsnake and tells Grogu to leave. Grogu doesn't. He stays behind, hides his father, and goes looking for a remedy on his own, finding it through a stranger willing to help. When the roles reverse and Grogu has to show up, to act, to refuse the order to go, the film earns something no plot mechanic could manufacture. Favreau and Filoni built toward that moment across two seasons. The movie is where it lands.
Grogu's growth doesn't feel sudden. It feels accumulated. He's been learning slowly over years of storytelling. The second act isn't a twist. It's a recognition. You're watching a character arrive somewhere he's been heading for a long time.
There's something familiar in that feeling. Pride mixed with surprise when someone you've watched grow up handles a hard moment without being asked. The relationship between Din Djarin and Grogu has always been built on a sense of parenthood more than anything else. When Grogu refuses to leave, you recognize something true: you don't raise someone and then get to be surprised when they show up.
Any parent watching that second act knows exactly what Favreau is reaching for. You spend years being the one who protects. Then the child grows into someone who protects back. Judge a thing for what it set out to do. That's always been my rule. But this film reminded me it applies to people too. Not an accident. That's the whole point of raising someone.
Is The Mandalorian & Grogu a great film? No. The plot is thin in places, but it doesn't pretend otherwise. However, it's a solid one. The bar was a summer movie that rewards years of investment in these characters. It clears that bar.
For most of the critics who've piled on, that wasn't enough. I think they were judging the wrong thing.
The Mandalorian & Grogu set out to make you care about two characters you already loved, earn a moment of real growth, and send you back into the summer heat feeling like it was worth your afternoon. This blog has always been about showing up: for the people you love, for the stories worth telling, for the moments that matter even when nobody's keeping score. Grogu showed up for his father when it counted. That's the whole point.
