'The Mandalorian and Grogu' Reviews Are In - Early Scores Suggest Rocky Start

Star Wars' highly anticipated brand-new movie The Mandalorian and Grogu won't hit theaters until May 22 (with some early showings available May 21), but critics have already had a chance to see it-and early reviews and the current Rotten Tomatoes scores for the movie suggest that not everyone loved it.

Although there have been many Star Wars TV shows released over the last several years, including The Mandalorian, from which The Mandalorian and Grogu comes, there has been a long hiatus in terms of new theatrical releases in a franchise that was once dominated by movies.

The most recent new film was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, released in December of 2019, and that movie generally didn't fair well with critics either; in fact, The Rise of Skywalker's Rotten Tomatoes critic score sits at a dismal 51%.

Shockingly, despite the fanfare around the movie and the focus on Din Djarin and Grogu, two of Star Wars' most beloved characters, The Mandalorian and Grogu's critic Rotten Tomatoes score really isn't much better. Currently, the critic score score is 61%, although that's likely to fluctuate somewhat as additional scores roll in.

In addition to the average score, reviews range from fairly positive to absolutely scathing. Among the 77 reviews that are currently on Rotten Tomatoes, one review from Tessa Smith at Mama's Geekybitingly states, "Underwhelmed is an understatement. The Mandalorian and Grogu feels like a mashed-up TV arc that belonged on Disney+ rather than in IMAX."

Another review from Hoai-Tran Bui at Inverse says, "It's a movie by way of theme parks and video games - at its best, it feels like a series of cutscenes edited together, at its worst, it feels like one of those videos you half-watch while waiting in line for the next Mandalorian-themed ride."

Owen Gleiberman at Varietysimilarly asserted, "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."

Granted, audience scores have yet to come in, and it's very possible that they will skew significantly more positive.

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This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 11:58 AM.