The Mandalorian and Grogu Review — A Safe but Charming Star Wars Adventure for Kids

Rating: 3/5 Stars

The Mandalorian and Grogu

Directed by Jon Favreau

Written by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor

Starring Pedro Pascal

Released May 22nd, 2026

A Smaller, Simpler Star Wars Movie

The Mandalorian and Grogu is a kids movie. Accept that going in, and you’ll probably have a decent time with it.

Directed by Jon Favreau and starring Pedro Pascal, the film doesn’t attempt to reinvent Star Wars or raise the stakes into some massive four-quadrant blockbuster spectacle. Instead, it stays surprisingly small, safe, and straightforward — focused more on giving younger audiences a fun entry point into the galaxy far, far away.

If you’re expecting something revolutionary, you may walk away disappointed. But if you judge the movie on what it’s actually trying to do, there’s enough charm, action, and warmth here to make it work.

The Story Feels Like a Saturday Morning Adventure

Set after Return of the Jedi and the collapse of the Empire, the film follows Din Djarin and Grogu as they work for the New Republic hunting down the remaining Imperial holdouts scattered across the galaxy.

Mando’s latest assignment comes from Ward, played by Sigourney Weaver, who literally hands out bounty assignments using a deck of cards. It’s a goofy concept, but one that immediately signals the lighter tone the movie is aiming for.

After completing a thrilling opening mission, Mando receives a new assignment: locate an elusive Imperial collaborator named Coyne. The catch is that nobody seems to know what Coyne even looks like. His card is blank, making him more rumor than man.

To find him, Mando must strike a deal with the Hutts.

With Jabba the Hutt gone, his criminal empire is now run by relatives who demand a favor in exchange for information. They want their nephew, Radda the Hutt — voiced by Jeremy Allen White — rescued from a brutal gladiator-style prison world where he’s being forced to fight for survival.

From there, the movie becomes a fairly straightforward rescue-and-retrieval adventure, with Mando juggling bounty hunting duties while continuing to raise Grogu like a single father trying to survive in space.

Grogu Steals the Movie

The film’s best sequence arrives midway through the story when Mando is poisoned and left unconscious on a hostile forest planet.

With enemies searching nearby, Grogu is forced to protect him, hide his body, and somehow find a cure before the poison kills him. These scenes finally allow Grogu to do something beyond simply looking cute.

He still is adorable, of course, but here the movie gives him agency, resilience, and genuine emotional weight. It’s one of the few stretches where the film feels fully engaged with the relationship between the two characters instead of simply relying on audience affection for them.

The Action Gets the Job Done — Nothing More

The action in The Mandalorian and Grogu is perfectly serviceable.

That may sound like faint praise because it mostly is.

Nothing here is bad. The movie looks polished, the pacing is brisk, and the set pieces are professionally staged. But very little of it feels memorable or ambitious. Outside of the strong opening action scene and Grogu’s survival sequence, most of the movie simply moves from one competent sequence to another.

The film succeeds at establishing Mando and Grogu as theatrical Star Wars heroes for a younger generation, but it rarely reaches beyond that goal.

A Movie Without Much Growth

One of the film’s biggest weaknesses is its lack of character progression.

There’s very little emotional evolution for anyone involved. Mando remains mostly the same person from beginning to end, and Grogu’s arc barely exists beyond continuing to be cute and occasionally powerful.

For viewers unfamiliar with the Disney+ series, it may even become distracting wondering how long Grogu is supposed to remain a baby. The movie never really explores his development in any meaningful thematic way.

That leaves the story feeling emotionally thin even when it’s entertaining on a moment-to-moment basis.

Why Younger Audiences May Love It

Still, despite its shortcomings, The Mandalorian and Grogu isn’t a bad movie.

It’s simply a modest one.

Older viewers who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy may struggle not to compare this movie to the sense of wonder those films inspired decades ago. But nostalgia complicates those comparisons. The original films weren’t perfect either — they simply arrived at the perfect moment for an entire generation.

What matters more is whether today’s kids will feel that same spark watching Mando and Grogu.

They might.

The movie has enough warmth, humor, and adventure to ignite a new generation’s love of Star Wars, even if longtime fans may leave wishing for something deeper, stranger, or more daring.

And honestly, if The Mandalorian and Grogu inspires kids to fall in love with movies the way the original Star Wars inspired so many people before them, that’s probably enough.