(courtesy IMP Awards)
You have to feel a certain amount of sympathy for anyone connected to a major franchise who is trying to steer it through the viciously opinionated waters of today’s digital age.
Everyone seems to have an idea about what should, and even more emphatically what shouldn’t happen next, and no matter how much care and attention is lavished on a project, there’s always a strenuously vocal minority who have OPINIONS.
That weirdly joy-sucking dynamic has been well and truly in play with The Mandalorian and Grogu, the continuation of the brilliantly executed streaming hit, The Mandalorian, but the good news it really doesn’t matter what’s shouted in a frenzy from the bleakly opinionated rafters because this film is a total, childhood-recapturing delight.
It rather magically rebottles that sense we all had in our first Star Wars film – in the case of this not-as-young-as-he-was reviewer that was the original movie, now known as A New Hope, back in 1977 – that here was something escapist and fun, an antidote to the exhaustive evilness of the world where justice prevails and people make decisions based on what’s right and heartfelt and not simply on what’s narcissistically advantageous and expedient.
If you recall from the streaming series, what truly captured almost everyone’s hearts was the fact that the central character, the Mandalorian aka Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), a member of a clan-based culture which values honour above all else, while a mercenary, always acted on what was honourable and right.
He took over guardianship of the Yoda-like figure who eventually became known as Grogu and who is now the Mandalorian’s apprentice instead of handing him over to a paying ex-Imperial customer because it was the right thing to do, figuring he could well and truly take care of any fallout when the time came.
And so, he did, and a legend was born, with the Mandalorian becoming Grogu’s adoptive father, his mentor and teacher, guiding the potently Force-gifted young kid through some very dark and terrifying real world challenges from people whose only goal was harness all that Force ability for their own nefarious ends.
That devoted relationship is very much in evidence in The Mandalorian and Grogu which, while it chock-full of old-timey-wimey Star Wars-ian swashbuckling action, comes back again and again to the devotion the Mandalorian has to his young charge, and rather critically this time around, Grogu has to his dad who doesn’t survive in one critical chapter of the film without the devoted care of his son.
While the story itself is relatively straightforward, with Mando as he’s affectionately known to some, commissioned by the New Republic’s Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) to hunt down Jani Coin (Jonny Coyn), a faceless warlord leader of one of the Imperial groups still terrorising their small corner of the galaxy, the actual execution comes with a ton of often really affecting layers.
Jon Favreau, who created The Mandalorian and who acted as one of its executive producers, once again manages to balance a sense of propulsive narrative momentum with the heart and soul that underpinned show which was as much about the touching relationship between the eponymous character and his adoptive son Grogu as it was about lingering Imperial evil being dealt with by a bounty hunter who cared about honour more than simply lining his own pocket.
While The Mandalorian and Grogu does feel at times like an extended TV episode, that’s not the negative many detractors seem to think it is since the show always felt lushly cinematic and epically involving, and all the film does is continue on in that compelling tradition.
It’d odd to, given how cinematic TV and streaming has become in recent years that saying something is like an extended episode of a show is some sort of gentle pejorative.
In the case of this wondrously delightful film which celebrates connection, parental love, destiny and honour & integrity, delivering up a super-sized episode, if you want to call it that, of a highly regarded show is no bad thing and speaks to the high quality many streaming shows now have and how rewarding it is to wonder from cinematic values alone.
What struck this reviewer most forcefully about The Mandalorian and Grogu is how it acts as a potent love letter to the power of doing the right thing.
That often feels a like hackneyed idea these days in our post-truth, every-person-for-themselves digital age but the idea that there is power in adhering to integrity and honour is given real world embodiment in everything Mando does.
His assignment to collect and hand over Rotta (Jeremy Allen White), the supposedly kidnapped son of Jabba the Hutt to his criminal relatives, which does not sit easily with him from the start even though he grudgingly appreciates the pragmatic reasons it’s happening, soon morphs into him enabling a wholly misunderstood figure to find his own honourable way in a galaxy seeking to restore the best attributes of who we are back into its Empire-scarred make-up.
Time and again Mando listens to his heart and his inner moral compass and time and again it delivers for him albeit with some hiccups.
Beyond this inspiring demonstration of the power of ethically-driven self-determination and community-mindedness, The Mandalorian and Grogu is at its heart the heartfelt story of a father and son, with Grogu stepping up at one point to save his father, proving that Mando’s belief in his power and goodness is wel-founded.
Mando observes that the old take care of the young and then the young take care of the old … that is The Way.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is an absolute escapist joy to watch that serves up all the swashbuckling, Wild West fun we’ve come to expect from the franchise with the integrity, honour and heartfelt connection of family and community we’ve come to expect from these characters and it will leave you feeling good about the world, the galaxy and the idea that doing the right thing isn’t twee nonsense but perhaps the most powerful thing we have at out disposal.