The Mandalorian and Grogu has debuted to a rather low Rotten Tomatoes score from critics who seem to think that the new Star Wars movie is equal parts cute and boring.
The movie, directed by Jon Favreau and co-written by Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor, picks up after season 3 of the hit Disney Plus show and sees Din Djarin and his tiny green son embark on a multi-planet mission to save Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) in exchange for some anti-Imperial information. It currently sits at a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 103 reviews, though I'm pretty interested to see how it'll do with fans. This makes the film one of the franchise's lowest, coming in under Attack of the Clone Wars (62%) and sitting above The Phantom Menace (54%).
"Between its by-the-numbers story and lackluster action sequences, The Mandalorian and Grogu feels like a phoned-in film that would have been better off as a new season of The Mandalorian instead of a standalone project," wrote The Verge.
"The Mandalorian and Grogu is neither great nor awful, and that's what makes it one of the galaxy far, far away's most frustrating," Collider rather point-blankly stated.
The Los Angeles Times had much kinder words, writing: "One of the movie’s strong points, absent its story deficiencies, is that, across its many wordless scenes, it's at heart a solidly rousing, delightfully icky creature feature, in the vein of a supercharged Ray Harryhausen-meets-Guillermo del Toro joint."
"This isn't going to reinvent Star Wars as a whole and isn't changing movie history. But I do think that The Mandalorian & Grogu is the kind of fun family adventure that fans of the show will enjoy," The Mary Sue said.
Our own review gave it three stars, writing, "As a simple adventure story, The Mandalorian and Grogu is a lot of fun with Baby Yoda's sheer adorableness doing a lot of heavy lifting. Epic action and a pulsating score help bring this story to a cinematic level that feels a real step up from season 3. Yet, with surprisingly low stakes for a Star Wars movie, it all ends up feeling rather inconsequential."
If you need something whimsical and lighthearted that gets you out of the bleakness and devastation that is currently plaguing our world... I can't recommend The Mandalorian and Grogu enough. Baby Yoda is so painfully cute, and he even teams up with the Anzellans. It's a bunch of little guys doing adventure stuff, and also Pedro Pascal is there. Take your kiddo, take your neighbor's kiddo, take your dad, wear a shirt you bought from Galaxy's Edge at Disney's World, and go have a good time.
The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters on May 22. While you wait, check out our guide to all the other upcoming Star Wars movies for everything else the galaxy far, far away has in store, or see our roundup of all the ways to watch the Star Wars movies in order.
