T Vinni

The cast had to have so much fun filming this, most ridiculous characters I’ve seen in a minute and the cheese factor is cranked to 11. As a horror movie it’s unfortunately pretty mediocre.

The way Spielberg can get you bought into a world is second to none. The little pieces of world building as the mystery unraveled was captivating and even though the mystery isn’t too confusing, it kept me throughly engaged to see what Spielberg wanted to reveal and when we were supposed to get that information as an audience.  My only gripe is there are moments where the pacing fails and it’s hard to pinpoint why. The characters are all relatively interesting and the conflict is gripping, but it takes so long to get to the bombshells that it’s easy to check out.  The final segment of Disclosure Day is must see cinema though. The fear that emanates from the actors made me feel that I was no longer watching this world, I was apart of it. It’s something only Spielberg can do and if this is his final film, I’m glad to see he captured that magic one last time.

Walking around the Pittsburgh Mills post watch was an awesome experience. Felt like I got stuck in the Backrooms myself for a little while. Insane directorial debut for a 20 year old, I hope we get a ton of sequels.

The worst part of Mando & Grogu is how inoffensive it is as a whole. There’s nothing bad about the film, there’s nothing that makes me upset, there’s noting that is insulting to the franchise that has been built, and there’s nothing that actively ruins the characters that have been established thus far in the Disney Star Wars universe. The film takes zero risks, it’s painfully safe and that’s the major flaw. No needles are moved, the Star Wars universe is the same as it was yesterday and that’s unacceptable for the first Star Wars feature film since 2019. If this was released as a Disney special presentation, I wouldn’t be complaining, in fact I’d go as far as to praise the film for exciting action sequences, funny new characters, and a great score, but unfortunately this isn’t a special presentation. You just can’t look at this as a piece of film and think that this was worth spending money to go see in theaters. However, if it was free to watch on my couch, I would’ve gobbled it up. That final point is the issue of the Dave Filoni led Star Wars, its great content for a quick brain release after coming home from a long day of work, but it’s not an event. It should never grace the silver screen and it should never be seen as a cultural phenomenon which feels completely antithetical to Star Wars as a franchise. When I saw Revenge of the Sith as a child in theaters, it changed my life. When I saw The Force Awakens as a junior in high school, it was the only thing I talked about for months. When I saw Mando & Grogu as an adult, I quickly logged it on Letterboxd and never thought about it again. I hope this film flopping is a wake up call to Disney, Dave Filoni is the Ashoka guy and we want more Andor, not Ashoka. The path forward for the company should be easy to follow from here.