Sometimes you just wanna watch a guy and his puppet kick ass.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” is the first theatrically released “Star Wars” movie in seven years, and (as near as I can tell) the first theatrical release without any characters from the original trilogy. It is blissfully free of self-reverence and connective tissue. You don’t even have to watch the first three seasons of “The Mandalorian” to enjoy it. Or the three episodes where Mando took over “The Book of Boba Fett,” for inexplicable reasons. All you have to do is sit back and watch this sensitive action hero and his adopted son save each other’s lives and kill a lot of bad guys. You know, like a proper family.
Jon Favreau’s film isn’t entirely separate from the rest of the franchise — there are still plot points about Jabba the Hutt’s family, and side characters from shows like “Star Wars Rebels” — but it isn’t completely beholden to the past, unlike all the other Disney-produced sequels and spin-off films. “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is as fresh as live-action “Star Wars” can probably feel these days, moving forward in story and tone, and embracing the evolution of the franchise. It’s a deft and enjoyable blockbuster, easily the most purely entertaining “Star Wars” movie since the 1980s, even though it’s hardly the most meaningful or ambitious.
In a nutshell: The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) is a borderline-unstoppable bounty hunter who never takes his helmet off. His adopted child Grogu is a tiny force wielder who chose to follow the way of the Mandalore instead of becoming a Jedi knight. (So if you think about it, calling this movie “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is like calling Arthur Penn’s 1967 crime classic “The Bank Robber and Clyde.”) Grogu is played by a puppet, which makes him infinitely more fascinating, adorable and believable than any of this movie’s CGI characters, who usually look phony, despite the giant summer blockbuster budget.
The plot begins with Mando and Grogu on a mission to weed out remaining Imperial leaders after the events of “Return of the Jedi,” but quickly segues into a more personal story about the giant crime boss slug monsters The Hutts, who hire Mando to save their lost nephew Rotta (Jeremy Allen White). The twist is that Rotta doesn’t want or need saving, he’s perfectly content to be a world-famous gladiator. He’s the only Hutt in “Star Wars” history who’s muscular enough to place in a Mister Universe competition — at least, if the “Mister Universe” competition accepted bodybuilders from the rest of the universe.
There are lots of action sequences, most of them shamelessly lifted — in the grand “Star Wars” tradition — from other movies. We’ve got the birdcage bar fight from John Woo’s “Hard Boiled” and a sci-fi speeder version of the car chase from “The French Connection.” A big chunk of “The Mandalorian and Grogu” also feels lifted from “Thor: Ragnarok,” a film so recent it plays less like homage and more like cribbing off of Marvel’s notes.
But Jon Favreau understands “Star Wars” is a transformative pastiche, finding the common narrative and thematic ground between genre films of all varieties and, occasionally, some deeper artistic storytelling, too. You won’t find a lot of the deep stuff in “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” This is a breezy Saturday morning matinee film, not a philosophical treatise, and it has very little to say about anything except family ties.
What makes “The Mandalorian and Grogu” resonate is a simple and affecting relationship between this father and son. There’s genuine love, genuine caring. Mando saves Grogu, Grogu saves Mando, and together they save a tiny corner of the universe. Meanwhile, the violent relationship between Rotta the Hutt and his family provides a simple but effective counterpoint. Not all families love each other, so we search for love wherever we can, whether it’s a roaring crowd or a little puppet guy who likes it when you feed him snacks.
Favreau’s film is pretty small compared to the galaxy-altering political war stories in the Skywalker Saga. But we still go on an epic journey, visiting varied and attractive locales and fighting a bunch of different monsters, all of whom belong on classic pulp novel covers. The story of two heroes and their healthy relationship makes “The Mandalorian and Grogu” more focused than many of the arguably more “important” tales in this franchise, no matter how much they claimed to say about the rise and fall of political regimes.
More than anything, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is an absorbing, classy summer blockbuster. Entertaining from start to finish, with so much heart that it never feels shallow. It’s straightforward, certainly, but never shallow. We can quibble about the film’s subpar villains — one of them is literally just “Telly Savalas in Space” — but this is a film about appealing heroes, not charismatic bad guys. Screw the bad guys. Evil isn’t cool. A doting father and his wacky puppet son are cool. And while their TV series is hit-and-miss, their movie is a bountiful success.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” hits theaters on Friday.
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