The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
Grogu is adorable. Sorry. Not sorry.
Fans of The Mandalorian television series and Star Wars diehards will likely enjoy what essentially provides a glimpse at the themes to be explored in the now-shelved fourth season.
Ludwig Göransson’s score adds energy and a boost in several optimal moments, and the film does provide impressive visual effects and action sequences.
NO
This does all feel like a series of episodic ideas than a cohesive film experience.
The dialogue and back-and-forth between characters is halting - as if the discussion exists only to buy us time before Jon Favreau loads up another extended action sequence.
For those hoping that this is Star Wars creating a can’t-miss theatrical experience, this really just feels like placeholder content for something else.
OUR REVIEW
Before we begin - I know someone who absolutely loves The Mandalorian and Grogu and is seeing it for a third time in the next few days and someone who hated it so much, they considered calling it the worst film of the decade.
While not generating the divisiveness of 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, I personally cannot fully condemn a movie that kids and Star Wars fans will likely enjoy, just as I also cannot fully embrace a movie that feels this thin and lost in an overall lack of vision of what this product was supposed to be.
At one point, The Mandalorian and Grogu was designed to serve as a fourth season of the Emmy-nominated Disney+ television series, but was put on hold because of the 2023 labor disputes. Reconfigured as a feature, elements and ideas originally intended for the series were reworked into a screenplay, with the hopes that a Mandalorian film would be successful enough to launch into spin-off sequels and a film franchise.
That’s about as basic a backstory as can be provided. The convoluted and sometimes contradictory comments from showrunners, director Jon Favreau, film producers, Disney executives, and others involved leave this project a bit of a mess before the first frame was ever shown on screen. Ultimately, the film replicates that uncertainty - feeling like a television series, but padded out to justify its placement at the multiplex.
Favreau has indicated that this film can serve as an entry point for those who have not watched the television series. I think that’s mostly correct for someone, like myself, who has only watched the first season of the series.
Pedro Pascal, or mostly his voice, portrays the title character. Meanwhile, the adorable and impossible-to-hate Grogu, a/k/a Baby Yoda, serves as his apprentice. Clad in a full suit of state-of-the-art body armor, the Mandalorian is a bounty hunter, named Din Djarin, who is forbidden to show his identity publicly. Here, with the fall of the Empire, and picking up events after season three of the television series, “Mando” and Grogu are looking for any remaining warlords and leaders to capture and bring to justice at the direction of the New Republic.
Tasked with finding a bad guy named Coin (Jonny Coyne), the tandem are forced to work with Rotta the Hutt, Jabba’s son, voiced by a gruff and grumbly Jeremy Allen White. And before you spend too much time thinking about Jabba the Hutt’s lineage, the film introduces his two twin brothers that could pose a problem for the Mandalorian and Grogu’s mission.
There isn’t a whole lot more that happens here. For the film’s 132-minute running time, we fight a lot. We engage in battle. We fly ships. We deal with intense beasts and monsters. Favreau directs the film in two speeds - urgent in the battle sequences and inert in the exposition and discussion that takes place.
It’s all interesting to watch, though not often for what is happening on screen. Instead, the mind drifts toward distracting questions and thoughts the film never quite overcomes.
Questions like: is that Pedro Pascal in the armor, or one of the two actors also credited with playing the body double of The Mandalorian? It doesn’t help that the Mandalorian performers walk and carry themselves differently.
There is a desire to provide fan service to Star Wars fans while also bringing new eyes to these characters and the property. There are impressive visual effects and some of the action sequences are exciting. Yet I do wonder, who is this made for? The quartet of rodent-adjacent creatures called Anzellans are cute and comic relief, and Grogu is adorable, but the monsters we see here provide some legitimately intense jump scares and could potentially frighten younger children.
Ludwig Göransson’s emphatic score heightens the stakes. Emotionless, monotone characters can work better in a television environment, where more time and care can be given to develop storylines and establish characters. With a massive theatrical blockbuster, though, momentum is stifled when there simply is not enough substantive content between the extended action sequences.
Far from the debacle it could have been, The Mandalorian and Grogu will likely satisfy folks already committed to these characters and this corner of the Star Wars universe. In many ways, it provides them with Season 4 of the series that would otherwise never exist.
Theatrical films, and specifically theatrical Star Wars films, hit differently. Star Wars, in many ways, created the cinematic blockbuster and event movie and Star Wars movies used to be cultural moments. Nowadays, when audience attention spans are as finite as ever, offering an experience this serviceable, safe, and narratively thin, makes The Mandalorian and Grogu feel like placeholder content instead of something significant and special.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, Jonny Coyne, Martin Scorsese, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Wayne, Lateef Crowder, Matthew Willig, Hemky Madera, Shirley Henderson, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Steve Blum, Anthony Daniels, Lee Isaac Chung
Director: Jon Favreau
Written by: Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Noah Kloor
Based on characters created by George Lucas
Release Date: May 22, 2026
Walt Disney Studios