Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is the cumbersome title for a film that shows if you’re going to hire Jon Favreau to direct, it’s rarely going to be a out-of-the-world result.
I saw the first couple of episodes of Pedro Pascal‘s series, The Mandalorian, and that was more than enough. No doubt, some will say, “Oh, but because of that, you’re missing out on three seasons of lore!!”… It’s Star Wars(!)
132 minutes gets you what was clearly constructed as a 3-episode story arc that rambles on and on. Mostly sporting a big helmet, he tells Sigourney Weaver, playing Sigourney Weaver – who just turned up to collect the cheque (as she did in Avatar: Fire And Ash) – he’ll “take out all the bad guys in her deck of cards“, even though that line has better audio definition in the trailer, while in the film, it’s swamped by other noise.
The only one she’s interested in is Lord Janu (Jonny Coyne – Bodies), who’ll lead him to a Commander Coin… Coyne? Coin? He’s surely going to turn up like a bad penny!
So, not much going on in the writing stakes, here. While, for some reason, his journey takes him to some Hutt twins, who want nephew Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White – Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere) back, currently being incarcerated by Janu, in order to fight in a pit for scant reward.
Visually, while the IMAX version apparently has 53 minutes in 1.90:1 (or 1.43:1 on such screens – although one review I read, from a contributor I trust, said the additional top section doesn’t have much going on, leaving anything extra to crowd into the bottom section), there’s a regular 2.39:1 version, but for a rare change, a version has been made for 1.85:1 screens, where it opens up in three scenes.
Avoiding spoilers in describing these, the first comes for almost ten minutes, around 40 minutes in, for a pit-fighting scene. The second comes just before the one-hour mark, and is a brief aerial dogfight/chase scene, lasting 3-4 minutes, intercut with a couple of 2.39:1 scenes with other characters. The third comes 78 minutes in, and runs 7 minutes, with a fight scene in a big lake.
So, similar to Project Hail Mary, there’s plenty of unnecessary fucking about with aspect ratios.
On the plus side in this film, Martin Scorsese has an amusing brief turn as an alien street cook, and there’s an early AT-AT scene, defeating three of them on the bounce, although out of all the scenes that could’ve benefitted from being opened up to 1.85:1, it’s these machines that require the height. Instead, it stays in 2.39:1, and the frame usually gets them all in, except for when one falls off the cliff and post-production has to pan down for it, cutting the others out of shot.
There’s also a brief piece of ’80s-sounding music by composer Ludwig Goransson (Sinners) called Shakari, but unfortunately, like all the music in this film, it’s baffilngly played through the front speakers only. What happened to Surround Sound?
Beyond that, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is overlong and staggeringly dull with barely any humour. And whenever ‘Baby Yoda’, aka Grogu, is present, although he’ll be CGI, he waddles along like this is The Muppets: An Ewok Adventure.
And what does Pascal actually do in all this? He has a “Suit Performer” (Brendan Wayne) and a “Stunt Performer” (Lateef Crowder), so just does the voice as well as occasionally appearing onscreen?
Immediately, another question: How the hell did this shit cost $200m to make? I ask the same question of the Michael Jackson hagiography, where the dimwitted flocked to worship a dead paedophile.
Even the 2015-2019 sequels trilogy was better than this… just.
Oh, and later, when you need a bunch of pilots to go and bomb something, you could hire any lackeys, but because it’s Star Wars, it needs a bunch of old-timers, including usually desk-bound Weaver, to go and do the job.
Please no more of this.
NOTE: There are no mid- nor post-credits scenes.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 132 minutes
Release date: May 22nd 2026
Studio: Disney
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 2/10
Director: Jon Favreau
Producers: Ian Bryce, Jon Favreau, Kathleen Kennedy, RJ Mino
Screenplay: Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Noah Kloor
Music: Ludwig Göransson
Cast:
The Mandalorian: Pedro Pascal
Colonel Ward: Sigourney Weaver
Zeb Orrelios: Steve Blum
Rotta the Hutt: Jeremy Allen White
Lord Janu: Jonny Coyne
Hogsberth: Matthew Willig
Hugo Durant: Martin Scorsese
Commander Barro: Hemky Madera
Gatori: Stephen McKinley Henderson
The Anzelians: Shirley Henderson
Prefect Nobah: Cullen Douglas
The Mandalorian Suit Performer: Brendan Wayne
The Mandalorian Stunt Performer: Lateef Crowder
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.