1 June 2026 – Three out of four of the cinema club went to see ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ today at ‘The Showcase’ cinema. The synopsis on the cinema website was as follows:
“Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure.”
This film felt a bit strange to those of us who don’t follow every last second of star wars movies and TV series. At least one of our number was there for the seemingly ‘cute’ factor of the presentation of the ‘Grogu’ character. The other two of us felt that the relentless violence from the very beginning of the film for what seemed like the whole of the first half of the movie was way too much, and did not give much scope for any other aspect of storytelling.
The leading members of the cast were: Pedro Pascal, Brendan Wayne, Jeremy Allen White and Sigourney Weaver; and the film was directed by Jon Favreau (actor evolved into director), who also co-wrote the screenplay with George Lucas and Dave Filoni.
The plot, setting and acting was overwhelmed by the level of violence, and we quite surprised by that, and found it quite irritating, although we do eventually get the story of ‘Rota The Hut’, but it is just not enough. And I would not recommend it to anyone for that reason.
Mark Kermode said he was not deeply immersed in the Star Wars franchise. It felt like a puppet show to him, which was a good thing as far as he was concerned. He suggested that many of the scenes did not have much regard for the laws of physics, and it felt very segmented to him.
His overall feeling was that it felt like an expanded TV episode, and whilst he didn’t mind that, he didn’t like it, apart from what he considered to be the puppet show, as he seemed to be a big fan of Grogu as a puppet, more than anything else.
I gave it a score of 6, whilst IMDB gave it 6.9, and the Rotten Tomatoes score was 6 (60%).
Fraser