Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure. (from IMDb)

It's hard to believe it's been six years since we've had a brand new Star Wars feature film. While that wouldn't have surprised us in the past, since Disney purchased Star Wars in 2012, we had had a new film each year from 2015 to 2019. Franchise fatigue - and fans not loving the treatment of legacy characters, let's be honest - led to the studio pumping the brakes on their features. In the meantime, the Star Wars series continued on their streaming service, Disney +, with The Mandalorian debuting in 2019 (just before the final Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker, hit theaters), followed by The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi and more recently, the animated Maul: Shadow Lord - among still others. In other words, there has been no shortage of new Star Wars content in recent years. After three seasons, with the third one dropping in 2023, The Mandalorian has largely remained "wrapped up"... until now. In lieu of a fourth season, fans are presented with a brand new feature film exclusively debuting in theaters, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.

A film for The Mandalorian is an interesting concept for the Star Wars universe. The only other non-saga movie to hit theaters that wasn't branded a "Star Wars Story" was the pilot episodes for The Clone Wars show that released as a feature almost 20 years ago in 2008. And where that movie served as a springboard for a new series, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu serves as a continuation of a TV series. You ultimately need to watch 3 seasons of 8 episodes each to fully be caught up with the galaxy-trotting exploits of The Mandalorian and Grogu. And is that homework worth doing? I suppose it depends on how invested you want to be in the Star Wars universe, but you can bet I did revisit all 3 seasons before stepping into the theater on opening night.

Here's a quick series until-now recap for those interested (skip this paragraph if you're good to go or don't want to know): At the start of the show, which takes place roughly 5 years after the events of Episode 6: Return of the Jedi, a bounty hunter simply known as The Mandalorian (or "Mando") is hired for a big job to bring in a mysterious target. That target turns out to be a 50-year-old alien that is actually a baby in its species - the same species that Yoda, from the original film series, is. And since Yoda was 900 years old when he died, it's no surprise that a 50-year-old in his species would still be a toddler. Mando immediately takes to the child and decides not to turn him in to the client - who apparently wanted him for experimentation. This puts a bounty on Mando's head (whose real name, we eventually find out to be, is Din Djarin), and by the end of the first season, he's finally out from under the thumb of the guild. As the series progresses, he finds himself at odds with the series' Big Bad, Moff Gideon, an Imperial zealot who wants the child for his own purposes and also wants to see the Empire rise in power again. Mando is tasked by the other Mandalorians to return the child to his own kind, where he runs into Ahsoka Tano and Luke Skywalker, and discovers the child's real name is Grogu (and that he just barely escaped Order 66 at the Jedi temple during the Empire's rise to power). Luke takes Grogu to train him, but Mando ultimately misses his little friend and visits him to gift him with a little coat of Mandalorian armor. Luke then gives Grogu the choice: he can inherit Master Yoda's original lightsaber and learn to be a Jedi as Luke's first student, or take the armor and return to Mando. (This maddeningly takes place during an episode of The Book of Boba Fett instead of The Mandalorian for no logical sense, by the way.) By the final season of the show, Mando and Grogu work with Mandalorian heiress Bo Katan to try to unite the Mandalorians, and Mando decides to adopt Grogu as his son so he can train him in the Mandalorian ways. He also offers his services to The New Republic and settles down with Grogu on a ranch.

The film picks up soon after all this. Mando is working for The New Republic to apprehend and bring in allies of the Empire, and then takes a job - reluctantly - for the Hutts to try to bring home the son of Jabba the Hutt, Rotta. This is the bulk of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu's plot, which focuses primarily on the titular characters. Many fans hated how season 3 split the focus with minor side characters and Bo Katan and her clan, losing the intimate feel of when the seasons just followed Din Djarin and Grogu, but this film gets back to the basics, focusing primarily on these two. Sure, a few characters do tag along at times - most intriguingly Zeb from the Rebels animated television series - but this is really Mando and Grogu's show.

The movie largely continues the feel of the show, but it also tightens things up to work as a film instead of a series of episodes - although, there are definitely parts of the film that easily feel like they could be divided up into distinct episodes. Still, director - and creator - Jon Favreau does good capturing the feel of the show and the universe on the big screen. Personally, I was kind of hoping for a little more than just the whole plot involving the Hutts, but the movie stays entertaining while also managing to inject some real heart along the way, thanks to Grogu. And while the film avoids cheer-inducing cameo moments just for the sake of theater seat excitement, there are plenty of gentle callbacks to the TV series, as well as one big fat Easter egg for the original 1977 Star Wars film that you might miss if you're not quite making the connection. (I'm going to tell you now, so if you don't want to know, skip to the next paragraph -- it's not really a spoiler, but if you want to see if you can find such an Easter egg on your own, feel free to jump ahead.) There's a big arena fight sequence that involves a wide variety of different creatures that may feel familiar and new all at once. Why? Because if you've seen A New Hope, specifically the Dejarik (or holographic chess) table on the Millennium Falcon, then you've seen these monsters before. Yep - each creature featured on the holographic chess game are brought to life during this arena fight! It's kind of crazy, but it is a fun nod to the iconic chess table and the original film that released 49 years ago.

While Pedro Pascal primarily just voices Mando, they do find a creative way to allow us to see his face for an extended sequence. It's funny, because the character just does not feel like "The Mandalorian" without the helmet, so while it's neat to see Pedro for a short time, it just doesn't feel like the same character during this time. What you also may not know is that most of the time you see The Mandalorian on screen, he's being performed by stunt actor and grandson of the late, great John Wayne, Brendan Wayne (who actually had a small part in Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens 15 years ago). Stunt Performer Lateef Crowder also suits up for Mando for a lot of the action, making this character a real collective effort (and I enjoyed seeing Brendan and Lateef get title card credits at the start of the film).

One minor gripe, though -- while the special effects are very good, I was surprised at how mediocre they looked at times (especially for 2026). For example, I was always amazed at how incredible some of the beasts and vehicles looked in the TV show, but a lot of the visuals feel softer and less sharp here. Maybe part of the problem is the BIG IMAX presentation, which doesn't give the details of the effects anywhere to hide, but moments like an AT-AT rolling off a cliff just felt a little undercooked. The arena monsters seem more cartoony than you'd expect for The Mandalorian, too. The gigantic, massive beasts in the show have such intense realism to them, but - although I get these monsters are kind of meant to have a bit of the cartoony prequel feel to them - they just don't seem like they're in quite the same universe that the show previously established. But really, these are ultimately minor nitpicks and nothing too serious.

The content of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is aligned with what we've seen in the TV show. Mando kicks, punches, slams and shoots his way through the galaxy. It's brutal at times - after all, he's kind of "Space Batman" when you think of it - but it isn't very gruesome or gory. Still, we do see the close-up of a wound in a person's side (through a hole in their clothes) and we see it again a couple more times, especially as it starts to get infected. It's gross, but it's not the worst either. (If you remember seeing close-ups of a wound or two in Rise of Skywalker - it's like that.) Otherwise, Favreau and company seem to try their best to keep the film action-packed and exciting without forsaking the potentially younger viewers. The TV series got pretty dark at times, and while the movie definitely has grit, it's probably never quite as dark as the show can get. The only profanity is a semi-muttered "d*mn" from a side character, and a single use of "h*ll." The show sometimes used mild language like this, so it was nice to hear the movie dial it back instead of lean into it. There is no sexual content to worry about, and there isn't any significant drug or alcohol use (although some miscellaneous characters are sometimes seen with drinks in their hands). Otherwise, there's just a great deal of action violence that doesn't shy away from Stormtroopers and beasts getting swallowed up by other creatures or shot up mercilessly. Some of it is still likely to be too intense for the little ones - including an absolutely gigantic snake monster at one point - but heaven knows everyone's going to adore Grogu.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is hardly peak Star Wars, but it's a welcomed return of the franchise to the big screen. The opening action sequence won me over immediately, but things don't quite stay at that level of awesome for the whole film. It's solid star-trotting entertainment and a nice continuation of the TV series -- just don't expect it to carry the weight of the previous Star Wars event films. Still, I do hope this isn't the last we've seen of The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Side note: There are no bonus scenes at all after the credits roll - so you don't have to stick around if you don't want to.

- John DiBiase (reviewed: 5/22/26)