THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU is kind of a different approach to a Star Wars picture: a small, standalone adventure. The fate of the galaxy is not at stake, there is no chosen one, no prophecy. It’s not even a prequel or an origin story. Coming from the popular Disney+ series The Mandalorian has given people the impression that it requires homework, but I assure you there is nothing at all you need to know that’s not there in the movie. It’s just one story about the titular bounty hunters on a mission, and not the mission that changed it all. Just a mission. To misquote M. Bison, it’s not the most important day of your life. It’s just Tuesday.

So it’s in the same world I love visiting in that epic space opera, but truly it’s a western or a samurai movie. That’s what I like about the show too, and I was skeptical about turning it into a movie instead of doing another season, but it turns out it’s fun to see these guys in one contained story with movie level production values. It’s light on the force, but high on some of the other things I love in Star Wars: a bunch of fantastical settings, outlandish creatures and robots, lots of them animated, some puppets, even some stop motion by Phil Tippet Studios.

The main character’s name is Din Djarin, but I don’t remember hearing that in the movie. Some friends call him Mando. Strangers call him The Mandalorian or The Mandalorian warrior or the bounty hunter. He wears shiny armor and hides his face for religious reasons; Pedro Pascal (THE GREAT WALL) provides the voice, but I don’t even think of it as him inside there, and in fact it’s usually John Wayne’s grandson Brendan Wayne.

It’s established that this is after the fall of the Empire (the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI), which is just like a western referencing the civil war – you get a clue what the sides are but we’re not here to study history. It’s only relevant because Mando has recently started working exclusively for the fledgling New Republic, hunting escaped Imperial war criminals now acting as warlords.

There’s a badass cold open where one such no-good motherfucker (Hemky Madera, SUPREMACY, PLAY DIRTY) mentions to the terrified victims of his protection racket that “We all agree things were better under the Empire.” Um, yeah, we all agree on that, yes sir. Then a perimeter alarm goes off. Mando is basically Batman or John Wick, an unstoppable force battling his way through layers of storm trooper security, sometimes a flash darting by and disappearing, but then suddenly he’s right there in front of them, shooting better, kicking harder, moving faster than they’re prepared for. This movie is very action oriented (stunt coordinator: J.J. Dashnaw, THE EQUALIZER 2) and I was happy to see that the Mandalorian’s stunt double Lateef Crowder (also stunt fight coordinator) got fourth billing. He’s the capoeira guy who fights Tony Jaa in the burning temple in TOM YUM GOONG/THE PROTECTOR. He’s also an opponent in UNDISPUTED III: REDEMPTION, and he’s in FALCON RISING, and he played Baraka in MORTAL KOMBAT: REBIRTH. An action legend turned Star Wars legend.

As fun as the action is here, the magic of the scene is the deepening oh shit realizations of the warlord and his minions as their contingency plans (including fleeing in an AT-AT) fail one after another. The gig is up. Beautiful.

Of course Grogu is around here somewhere too. He’s Mando’s adopted son and partner who looks like Yoda, coos like a baby, can use the force to levitate things or talk to animals or even heal wounds, and loves Mando almost as much as he love snacks. I love that he combines a human baby, a highly evolved spiritual being, and an animal that has to be told “heel” and stopped from eating anything that moves. He has chosen the life of a Mandalorian bounty hunter over Jedi training, but you don’t need to know that, you just see that he wears a tiny little chest plate and Mando is always trying to teach him all the details of the job but he’s a baby (and a goofy puppet) so it’s always funny when he actually does help out with the bounty hunting. There are many ways this is not the same as Lone Wolf and Cub, the great manga and movie series about an outlaw assassin for hire who brings his toddler son to work with him. But one way it’s the same is that the baby is actually a partner. Don’t fuck with the baby.

If you did watch the show you saw Mando and Grogu settle down in a little house. Now he’s got a new set up where he goes to a depot where (ex-Rebel?) X-wing pilots hang out and New Republic Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver, ALIEN 3) assigns him Imperial assholes to go after. With some hesitation he accepts a job where he’s basically farmed out to The Twins – slug-like cousins of the gangster Jabba the Hutt (R.I.P.) – to find their nephew Rotta, who’s been taken captive on the planet Shakari. Mando doesn’t give a shit, but if he does it the Twins will give him the location of a New Republic target they have almost no information on.

As on any job for hire, things aren’t as they seem, complications arise, that’s where the fun is. Rotta is in fact living in a cage, but he’s a famous gladiator who’s happy with that life because he’s good at it and earning a reputation separate from his vile gangster father. The concept of a Hutt who made himself buff and kicks ass is absurd and comical, and I love so much that they made it work for me. Much thought seems to have been put into how it would work. His arms are short but his fists are hard and he does alot of rolls and body slams and knows how to squash a motherfucker. He’s almost out of his debt to the criminal Janu (Jonny Coyne, LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER – THE CRADLE OF LIFE, THE TOXIC AVENGER 2025) but neither Janu or the Twins have his best interests in mind, and Mando’s not gonna just do what he’s told, especially by those assholes. So he has to figure out the way.

When I first heard that Jeremy Allen White (The Bear, FREMONT) was voicing a Hutt I thought it was fake, a funny joke. When it was confirmed I assumed it was just a little bit part he did for fun, maybe even unrecognizable, speaking Huttese. In fact he speaks “Galactic Basic” (I got used to it pretty quick) and is a co-lead with second billing. Though it turns out many feel otherwise, I think White is one of the keys to this movie working. I love the ambition of trying to make us feel for a Hutt, and the natural vocal performance sells it. His voice is lowered but he plays him the same way he might have played a human in a sports drama: kinda macho and inarticulate but surprisingly kind and emotionally honest. He’s a standup guy (though he doesn’t have legs). He’s got enough humanity that I can think about this cartoon, this man in the helmet and this puppet sharing a bond from being very good at their violent occupations while struggling to overcome their tragic origins and find their paths in life.

Some viewers may never accept Rotta simply because Jabba was a top 5 of all time practical FX movie monster, and the animation used to make Rotta certainly doesn’t compare. So I guess it comes down to whether the idea and presence of this character is worth the trade off, worth still doing. To me it absolutely is. I love his dynamic with Mando – a respectful one, trying to reason with him, trying to make a run for it, being friendly and apologetic when caught. And I love how much he likes Grogu (“Can I feed him?”), how much Grogu likes him (curling up and sleeping on top of him), the little talk he has with Mando about how the kid is gonna be alright, which come to think of it also is about the movie’s central theme that Grogu will naturally live hundreds of years longer than Mando and he won’t be able to protect him. Rotta says “He’s lucky to have you” and Mando points out that Rotta turned out alright on his own. Trying to convince himself it’ll be okay.

THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU is directed by Jon Favreau (IRON MAN, THE JUNGLE BOOK), who also created the show. It’s written by Favreau, Dave Filoni (director of the Avatar: The Last Airbender pilot – yes, the original animated one) and Noah Kloor (The Book of Boba Fett). Everyone apparently agrees that it’s like 3 or 4 episodes of the show lined up, but I really don’t think there’s anything unusual about the structure, and of course the story indulges the sorts of things they can’t afford to do on the show. Tons of fully animated characters, big action, more varied and developed settings.

I love the atmosphere of these places – the city that looks more real than Coruscant (no offense Coruscant, you know I love you), the attack on Mando’s house during a rain storm at night (did they watch HEAVEN’S PRISONERS for reference?), experiencing the swamp in the day and at night. I think it has a good look to it, with a more realistic texture than the show, even though it’s mostly the same crew (including cinematographer David Klein, CLERKS).

It’s a little less of a samurai story than the show is, because it doesn’t deal much with his dedication to an extreme code and attempt to square it with the problems he encounters. On the other hand, one of the standout sections of the movie – when Mando is hurt so Grogu hides him, meditates and brings him water and food – is straight out of Lone Wolf and Cub. I couldn’t find the comics story about it (did I imagine it?) but there’s a similar part in the movie LONE WOLF AND CUB: BABYCART AT THE RIVER STYX. Of course it’s in the Lucas tradition to take inspiration from Japanese cinema (and now they can do it with movies that were pretty recent when STAR WARS came out).

If you’re only a casual Star Wars person, but this sounds good to you, I think you might like it. There are not any fan service cameos to feel left out of, no post credit tag you have to ask your friend about, no tease for some future thing you might have to watch. There are characters (including Rotta, the pilot Zeb and the wordless bounty hunter Embo) who originally appeared in the animated shows, but there’s no information needed about them, they’re treated exactly as they would be if this was their first appearance.

As a side note it’s funny to me how many people get mad at co-writer Filoni – padawan of George Lucas, shepherd of the animated shows, and now president of Lucasfilm – for continuing the stories of characters like Zeb or Ahsoka (who’s not in this, but she’s the one they’re usually talking about). The implication is that he should know his place and just recycle the “real Star Wars” stuff that existed in movies before he got there, not be an artist and storyteller who adds his own thing into it. Ahsoka was created by Lucas, but Filoni grew her into the character so many of us love, so I guess they think he’s selfish for continuing to do that? It’s very dumb.

A complaint specific to this movie that I have no patience for is “they should’ve shown Pedro Pascal’s face more.” If anything they shouldn’t have shown it at all! The show has done powerful things with Mando’s unmasking, but it would be cheapened by rehashing it in this format or trying to explain it to newcomers. One of the main things that’s cool about the character is how much they can express about him with only voice and movement and not the usual tool of facial expressions. If you want to see a regular movie with faces in it, I have great news – most movies do that! Even if you need it to specifically be Pedro Pascal’s face, he’s in like every third movie released in the past five years. What you’re asking for is widely available. Let me have this one movie trying a rare and interesting challenge.

To be clear, I love most of the Star Wars movies, and I would rank THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU low among them. I definitely think it works better than the Clone Wars theatrical movie, THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, and (don’t kill me) ROGUE ONE. As pretty as that one is I just think it completely fumbles the telling of the story and I hate that it centers on two dead weight leads while there are so many more interesting characters around them. The A+++ two season Andor series did get me invested in Cassian Andor, but it makes ROGUE ONE play even worse because it demonstrates how much better that material can be handled. I bring all that up to say that even though I personally prefer this solid little story where the lead duo really are the best part, I recognize that ROGUE ONE is trying something more ambitious, so I get preferring it for that reason. And in fact I prefer Lucas’ prequels – messier, dumber, but I just like what they’re going for, I like reading into them, I like thinking about the Jedi philosophy. I like all the Star Wars shit. This is some of the Star Wars shit. So that makes it feel pretty light weight compared to my favorite Star Wars stories.

But, you know – sometimes you’re in the mood for FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE even though you know ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST is out there. This movie succeeds at its mission of being a breezy, colorful space western. They fly in, they do a job, they help some people along the way, they fly off into the sunset. Who was that masked man? I don’t know, but his baby kept stealing my food, he needs to keep that thing in control.

Click here for linkes to my reviews of every George Lucas movie and also every Star Wars movie