Film reviews: ‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,’ ‘I Love Boosters,’ and ‘Obsession’
A bounty hunter and his wee mate take on a new mission, shoplifters seek to topple a fashion mogul, and a young man’s wish for love goes horrifyingly awry
‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’
Directed by Jon Favreau (PG-13)
★★
“It’s time to ask for more,” said Kate Erbland in IndieWire. While this first new Star Wars movie in seven years is “charming enough in the moment,” it’s “almost instantly forgettable,” a spin-off of a Star Wars TV series that’s little more than “three good-enough TV episodes smushed together.” Pedro Pascal is back as the masked bounty hunter who is the title character of Disney+’s The Mandalorian. Mando, as usual, is accompanied by the “still very cute” Grogu, aka Baby Yoda. But shouldn’t a Star Wars movie reach for more?
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To me, “the film’s relative modesty comes as something of a relief,” said Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. “Freed from the burden of canonical responsibility,” it’s nothing but “flighty fun,” a “Western-y” space adventure in which Mando has been enlisted to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s son, Rotta, from captors as part of a larger mission to take out a baddie who’d been allied with the recently fallen Empire. Sigourney Weaver even makes an appearance. Granted, none of the many action sequences match the scale of those in the 2015–19 Star Wars movie trilogy. But the action scenes are exciting in their own right, helping to make this film “a likable-enough one-off.” Still, the Star Wars franchise “once led the culture with its imagery, swagger, and style,” said Mark Kennedy in the Associated Press. This entry feels merely formulaic, with little on the line except the outcome of a stray assignment for one bounty hunter. “You used to leave a new Star Wars movie on a cloud. Here, that galaxy is far, far away.”
‘I Love Boosters’
Directed by Boots Riley (R)
★★★
“If you’re wondering whether Boots Riley has toned down his brash satirical style, have no fear,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. The rapper turned director’s first film since 2018’s acclaimed Sorry to Bother You is “every bit as out there, maybe more so.” Keke Palmer plays Corvette, the leader of a three-woman gang of shoplifters who resell stolen high-end clothes and have targeted a billionaire designer played with comic flair by Demi Moore. But Riley unleashes wild departures from reality, and “you either go with it or you don’t.”
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In the movie’s second half, “Riley turns the volume up on the surreal meter way past 11,” said Brian Tallerico in RogerEbert.com. After Corvette’s cause is taken up by a fourth booster who can teleport, this energetic send-up of fashion, capitalist exploitation, and cultural appropriation “goes to so many impossible, ridiculous places that Riley sometimes feels like he loses a grip on the messaging.” Still, “there’s something invigorating about seeing an artist like Riley given the freedom to just go for it.” Largely thanks to Palmer, the movie never fully falls apart, said Chase Hutchinson in The Wrap. “As always,” the One of Them Days star is “a captivating, comedic jolt of energy,” and she also provides “the emotional heft the film needs at key moments.” Riley, for all his comic flourishes, clearly roots for everybody who’s trying to survive in our cutthroat world and is helping others do the same. Though he traffics in spiky cynicism, “it’s a cynicism that is cut with a more earnest belief in people.”
‘Obsession’
Directed by Curry Barker (R)
★★★
This hit theatrical debut from 26-year-old Curry Barker is “the best kind of nightmare,” said Nick Schager in the Daily Beast. “Knotty, amusing, and absolutely unhinged,” Barker’s low-budget horror breakthrough uses a simple be-careful-what-you-wish-for premise to dramatize the destructive selfishness of a certain breed of male desire for female attention. Michael Johnston plays Bear, a meek young man who makes a wish using a novelty store item that turns Nikki, his longtime crush, into an obsessively devoted girlfriend—so devoted that she’s ready to kill to keep anyone from coming between her and her man.
In Act 3, “Barker puts the pedal to the metal, dishing out gore with the glee of a genre purist.” A fully satisfying exploration of the themes Barker raises “would take a far more gifted filmmaker,” said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. “Still, Obsession carries us along,” primarily because Inde Navarrette, playing Nikki, “so beautifully switches between sickly sweet devotion and wailing, tormented lovesickness.” Barker, who got his start as a YouTube prankster, also sprinkles in weird humor, and he clears the bar that any horror flick must: “We wish we could leave the theater, but we feel we must see what happens next.” Navarrette, previously known mostly for TV roles, “delivers the kind of instant classic horror performance that will surely traumatize Gen Z for years,” said Katie Walsh in the Chicago Tribune. At least it’ll traumatize Gen Z men, who apparently find nothing more terrifying than an unpredictable woman.