I must say this right now: “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” is the most tepid Star Wars flick since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019). Thoroughly uninspired and mediocre from the beginning to the end, the movie simply trudges from one expected narrative point to another without much sense of joy and wonder for us, and we are only consoled a bit by a very few moments of fun pasted onto it.

Yes, I know that the movie is sort of encore to the Disney+ TV series “The Mandalorian”, and, considering that I have not watched any episode from that TV series, I may not be an ideal audience for the film. However, even though I was willing to open my mind from the very beginning, the movie turned out to be no more than a very expensive and superficial special episode, and I do not think the fans of the TV series would complain much even if it went straight to Disney+ instead.

One of the main problems of the movie is that it takes its two titular characters for granted a bit too much. If you have not watched the TV series at all just like me, there is almost nothing for you to get any substantial understanding on the strong relationship between “the Mandalorian”, who is also known as Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), and his little cute alien ward named Grogu, and they will just come to you as mere plot elements to roll from one narrative point to another. Perhaps, I should have watched the entire TV series first, but, folks, life has already been too short for me since I passed 40 a few years ago.

Therefore, I tried to enjoy the technical aspects of the film instead during my viewing, but, alas, director/co-director/co-writer Jon Favreau, who wrote the screenplay with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, does not try that much as merely being on autopilot mode. In terms of mood and details, the movie looks so visually flat and bland on the whole that I got frequently bored instead of becoming genuinely engaged and enchanted, and, the worst of all, the performers in the film often do not feel like inhabiting its backgrounds at all.

For example, just look at the main background of the first half of the story, which mainly revolves around the Mandalorian’s attempt to rescue the young son of that infamous alien villain character in “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” (1983). When The Mandalorian and Grogu arrive at a big city on some alien planet, we are instantly disappointed as the city does not have much style and personality except looking quite drab and dark on the screen, and the only saving grace in this passable background comes from a little cameo appearance by Martin Scorsese, who is surely as talky as you can expect from him.

During its second half, which has the Mandalorian and Grogu get into a big serious trouble after they did the right thing for that alien lad in question, the movie shows some potential as introducing a number of different alien figures and creatures, but it lets us down again without anything new or fresh to impress us. Things get a little more interesting around the narrative point where an alien figure warmly played by Stephen McKinley Henderson appears, but, just like many other things in the story, this part is quickly discarded as the movie hurriedly moves its two main characters to the next narrative point.

Sure, there is a bit of cuteness thanks to Grogu, who is a small, adorable version of Yoda in the Star Wars flicks and is vividly presented on the screen via animatronics and puppetry augmented with visual effects. I and many other audiences were certainly charmed by this little likable alien character, and I was amused a bit whenever I watched Grogu doing some cute stuffs, but that is all we can get from this alien character, and the movie unsurprisingly uses Grogu as a convenient plot device more than once along the story.

In case of Pedro Pascal, who has been one of the reliable actors working in Hollywood during last several years. I can only tell you that he did a fairly good job of filling his role with enough presence and a bit of personality even though we do not see much of his face throughout the film. He and Grogu are mostly convincing as an odd duo to watch, but the movie does not give them enough space for more character development as often being busy with throwing them into more action along the story.

And the action scenes of the film are not particularly good or memorable in my inconsequential opinion. Unless he has to do some physical actions, the Mandalorian, who is incidentally one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, shoots here and there, and many of those bad guys (and aliens and robots) in the film are always shot down within a few seconds with no surprise for us at all. In case of the expected climactic sequence, the last-minute appearance of those X-wing pilots of the New Republic led by none other than Sigourney Weaver feels like being tacked onto that just for more bangs and crashed across the screen, but some of you may be a bit entertained by the very short cameo appearances of Deborah Chow, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Rick Famuyiwa, and Lee Isaac Chung (How nice it is to see Chung again after meeting him in person at the 2010 Ebertfest more than 15 years ago….).

Overall, “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” dissatisfied me for its numerous weak aspects, and I must tell you that it actually made me less curious about the TV series. As writing the last paragraph of this review, I remember less of whatever I saw from the movie, and my mind is already ready to move onto anything better than this lackadaisical product.