On Screen: “The Mandalorian and Grogu”
The Mandalorian and Grogu
While it’s billed as a “Star Wars” film, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is actually a big-screen spinoff of the Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” which made its debut in 2019, introducing a brawny, fully-armored, bounty-hunting Mandalorian warrior Din ‘Mando’ Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his tiny, always hungry ward Grogu, resembling a Baby Yoda.
Director-writer Jon Favreau, along with co-writers David Filoni and Noah Flor, begins with some fast-paced, high-octane sequences leading into the New Republic’s Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) dispatching Mando-the-mercenary to capture an evil Imperial warlord so elusive that no one even knows his name — except the slimy Hutt Twins, slug cousins of notorious Jabba the Hutt.
In return, the Hutt Twins demand that Mando rescue their nephew, Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), currently enslaved as a gladiator on a distant planet by evil Sith Lord Janu (Jeremy Coyne).
Wailing, “Do you know how hard it is to be your own man when your father is Jabba the Hutt?” — Rotta is a seriously conflicted dude.
Episodic in its adventure structure, the formulaic plot consists of numerous battle sequences as the visual effects artists demonstrate their technical expertise, propelled by Ludwig Goransson’s superb score.
Not surprisingly, adorable, animatronic Grogu steals the show. He’s a curious, often willful, magical child who demonstrates his loyalty and devotion to his adoptive father figure when Mando is poisoned by a really scary swamp-snake.
FYI: While Pedro Pascal voices Mando, whose face appears only briefly, the character is mostly played by helmeted stunt doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder. And if the raspy voice of nervous food truck chef Hugo Durant sounds familiar, it belongs to Martin Scorsese (who directed a movie called “Hugo”).
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is an action-packed 7 — in theaters everywhere … and there’s no mid-or-post credits scene.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.