r/boxoffice

I will continue to update this post as reviews come in.

Rotten Tomatoes: Fresh

Critics Consensus: N/A

Critics	Score	Number of Reviews	Average of Rated Reviews
All Critics	60%	111	5.90/10
Top Critics	74%	27

Metacritic: 54 (38 Reviews)

Sample Reviews:

Wenlei Ma, The Nightly (AU) 3.5/5 - The great thing about this little corner of the Star Wars universe is that while there are bigger stakes in terms of the New Republic versus the Empire, the most important one is personal.

John Wenzel, Denver Post 3/4 - It’s glorious high adventure that, like the original Star Wars trilogy, is both accessible and visually daring.

Justin Clark, Slant Magazine 2.5/4 - Mandalorian and Grogu is, basically, four Mandalorian episodes wearing an IMAX trench coat.

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times - One of the movie’s strong points, absent its story deficiencies, is that, across its many wordless scenes, it’s at heart a solidly rousing, delightfully icky creature feature, in the vein of a supercharged Ray Harryhausen-meets-Guillermo del Toro joint.

Hanna Flint, Time Out - It's not a great look when CG-enhanced puppets are outperforming everyone in the line-up, delivering their lines like they turned up to set with a hangover every day.

Alonso Duralde, The Film Verdict - There’s no shortage of Star Wars–level wow factor, from the slimy beasts to the outer-space dogfights to Ludwig Göransson’s score.

Kristen Lopez, The Film Maven C - The plot is non-existent and it really does feel like a fully CGI movie. But when it's just Mando and Grogu going from A to B it's such a sweet story.

Jesse Hassenger, AV Club B - When Favreau banishes traditional actors in order to send little puppet creatures scuttling through the verdant landscape, suddenly his human-light blockbuster looks, if not quite visionary, at least novel.

Linda Marric, HeyUGuys 4/5 - It's a scrappy, creature-filled adventure movie about a weary warrior and his tiny adopted son stumbling into danger after danger. It may not reinvent the franchise, but it reminds you why you fell in love with that world in the first place.

John Nugent, Empire Magazine 3/5 - The first Star Wars film in nearly a decade doesn’t shake up the formula: instead, it’s a lively if inessential extended episode of the series. But Mando remains cool, and Grogu remains cute.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety - By nudging “The Mandalorian” onto the big screen, Disney, the purveyor of the “Star Wars” multiverse, is offering nothing more (or less) than a couple of likable, diverting, semi-forgettable episodes jammed together.

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press 2/4 - The runtime saps energy and when it’s all done, the scrolling credits for all those special effects goes on a full five minutes. You used to leave a new “Star Wars” movie on a cloud. Here, that galaxy is far, far away.

Brian Truitt, USA Today 3/4 - It’s an enjoyable throwback romp with plenty of action and weird creatures to overcome its weaknesses.

Kevin Maher, The Times (UK) 1/5 - Would someone please put Star Wars out of its misery? It’s an ailing pop cultural mutant, unrecognisable from the chirpy fable that George Lucas revealed to the world in 1977.

Danny Leigh, Financial Times 3/5 - In wrangling his own inheritance from Lucas and Abrams, Favreau has at least given Generation Alpha back the small joys of a Star Wars movie -- in a world getting no less hard for little things.

Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post 3/4 - I don’t see “The Mandalorian and Grogu” as a starting point for a series of films so much as a likable enough one-off with plenty of exciting action set pieces.

Kambole Campbell, Little White Lies 2/5 - As the story returns things to status quo, it’s hard to think of what has even changed between the two, what they might have learned about each other, and if the filmmakers will ever be an interest in finding out.

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture - Drab and stone-faced to a fault, The Mandalorian and Grogu struggles to capture the inventive vitality of the better Star Wars movies with action scenes that feel frustratingly pro forma and lifeless performances that seem determined to lull us to sleep.

Kate Erbland, IndieWire C+ - Inessential and inoffensive, frequently adorable and fun for the whole family, Jon Favreau’s film feels like three good-enough TV episodes smushed together.

Matt Singer, ScreenCrush 6/10 - This is the way to turn a season of TV into a solid but unremarkable feature.

Clarisse Loughrey, Independent (UK) 2/5 - With The Mandalorian and Grogu, Star Wars has lost all sense of wonder.

Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph (UK) 2/5 - Everything Disney needed to revive the franchise after its seven-year absence from cinemas is in here. The problem is there is only around 20 minutes of it, and much of the rest is hopeless.

William Bibbiani, TheWrap - It’s a deft and enjoyable blockbuster, easily the most purely entertaining 'Star Wars' movie since the 1980s, even though it’s hardly the most meaningful or ambitious.

Peter Bradshaw, Guardian 3/5 - The film is watchable and barrels along capably enough, but perhaps there isn’t enough of the humanity, humour and extravagant space melodrama which has made and continues to make Star Wars lovable.

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter - It’s hard to imagine anyone experiencing this as their first Star Wars film and getting hooked for life as those who saw the original trilogy in theaters did. Still, it’s an entertaining, fast-spaced space adventure.

Nick Schager, The Daily Beast - A swashbuckling space Western that deftly marries combative spectacle and kid-friendly cuteness.

Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence B - There have been some exciting new stories told in this universe since The Rise of Skywalker, but watching this latest installment of Lone Wolf and Cub in space just confirms the degree to which Star Wars feels like it’s spinning its wheels.

SYNOPSIS:

The evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young apprentice Grogu.

CAST:

• Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin / The Mandalorian
• Grogu as Himself
• Jeremy Allen White as Rotta the Hutt
• Steve Blum as Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios
• Martin Scorsese as Hugo Durant
• Sigourney Weaver as Colonel Ward

DIRECTED BY: Jon Favreau

SCREENPLAY BY: Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Noah Kloor

BASED ON CHARACTERS CREATED BY: George Lucas

PRODUCED BY: Kathleen Kennedy, Ian Bryce, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Karen Gilchrist, John Bartnicki, Carrie Beck

CO-PRODUCERS: Noah Kloor, R.J. Mino, John Hampian

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: David Klein

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Andrew L. Jones, Doug Chiang

EDITED BY: Rachel Goodlett Katz, Dylan Firshein

COSTUME DESIGNER: Mary Zophres

VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR: John Knoll

VISUAL EFFECTS ANIMATION BY: Industrial Light & Magic

MUSIC BY: Ludwig Göransson

CASTING BY: Sarah Halley Finn

RUNTIME: 132 Minutes

RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2026