If you love ‘The Mandalorian’ on Disney+, or if you love Dave Filoni’s characters in the ‘Clone Wars’ and other shows, then ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ is for you. The film is basically a soft sequel to the animated “Clone Wars” film, and it feels like season four of the Disney+ show condensed into a film.
Now, this doesn’t mean the movie is bad, but the core audience will likely be Filoniverse or Mandalorian fans.
I will try to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, only mentioning specifics seen in trailers.
The good
It’s a fun film that is filled with Grogu and his dad going on adventures and missions.
The space battles are beautifully done, and even my husband leaned over and said, “Oh! That was good!” after seeing one.
It captures the feelings of the first and second seasons of ‘The Mandalorian,’ which is good, because the third season sucked. However, there are characters from the third season of the show in the film.
There are a lot of fan-service moments, like the Hoth-esque planet and the AT-AT walkers from the trailer. Later on, there is a scene that is a cross between the Rancor fight from ‘Return of the Jedi’ and the trash compactor from ‘A New Hope.’ In the city, a chase scene is reminiscent of the one from “Attack of the Clones.”
The music is mostly good, except for this odd techno piece that is cool on its own, but doesn’t really fit into the film. Other than the one piece, the music is stellar.
Grogu gets a lot more to do in this film and has to step up, which was nice to see.
The Anzellans (Babu Frik species) are cute and funny. There are moments of humor throughout, mostly provided by Grogu or the four Anzellans. But it isn’t over the top.
New creatures and a good look at the Hutt homeworld Nal Hutta, were nice additions.
The bad
It’s basically the fourth season of ‘The Mandalorian’ and could have been a Disney+ show. This movie needed to be released a few years ago.
I feel like this film was just Filoni’s vehicle to make it all about his original characters and continue a story from “The Clone Wars” movie. He even puts himself and other directors into the film.
The color palette is very muted and dark for most of the film. There are some exceptions, but it looks muddy and feels like it’s being filmed at a TV show that is Instagrammable/TikTok-able.
The Hutts do not look great in CGI. Jabba’s original incarnation (puppet form) worked far better than the CGI ever did. I wish they had found a way to work that in or make it look more like that. I understand that the fight scenes would make it harder to do that. But Grogu looked better than Zeb or the Hutts.
Some of the scenes felt like jerky video game cut scenes. I think they were going for an old stop-motion feel (think Ray Harryhausen). It wasn’t smooth and was off-putting with everything else being so highly detailed. But I did appreciate the look of it (it just didn’t fit.)
Not bad, but noteworthy is the body count in this film. Mando is a bounty hunter, and he doesn’t mess around, so keep that in mind if you have sensitive kids.
Overall, it was a cute film that fans of the show will really enjoy. If you don’t like the show, then you probably won’t like this film.
I would rate it a 6.5-/10.
It is better than the Disney sequel trilogy films.
What do you think? Comment and let us know!
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