Obi-Wan Kenobi, review: Ewan McGregor shines but Star Wars is suffering from galactic bloat

Star Wars fans have endured so much heartache and disappointment over the past 20 or so years – from Ewan McGregor’s haircut in The Phantom Menace to an often Boba Fett-less The Book of Boba Fett – that it comes almost as a surprise when a new instalment in the franchise achieves an agreeable level of competence. And agreeably competent is the best description for Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+), in which McGregor reprises the part of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Disney+’s new “special limited series” takes up the story 10 years after the end of the greatly-maligned George Lucas prequel trilogy – aka the movies that launched a million fanboy meltdowns on early internet forums. Carrying on from where those films left off, the big talking point going into the six-part season was that it would reunite McGregor with his old prequel foil, Hayden Christensen, aka Anakin Skywalker, aka the baby-faced Darth Vader.

So it’s disappointing that Darth the Younger doesn’t get much screen time in the first two instalments released back-to-back by Disney (directed by Deborah Chow, who oversees the entire production). Mostly, we see him obscured inside a huge floating tub of medicinal goo,  the favourite relaxation method of Star Wars villains.

That letdown aside, long-suffering Star Wars devotees may find their cockles gently warmed by Obi-Wan Kenobi. As with those prequel films, McGregor is by a considerable distance the best thing in it. So much so that it feels slightly unfair when other actors are required to cross figurative lightsabers with him.

His world-weariness as an exiled Jedi, for instance, lands so much more authentically than the comic-book dialogue spouted by Moses Ingram, aka Jedi-hunting “Inquisitor” Reva. Lumbered with lines such as “tell me where the Jedi is or this man and his family die!” Ingram (The Queen’s Gambit) does her best and has real presence – and yet her character feels like something from a Hunger Games knock-off, especially when contrasted with McGregor’s nuanced world-weariness.

When we said our farewells to Kenobi, he’d returned to the desert planet of Tatooine with a baby Luke Skywalker, while Luke’s twin, (ancient spoiler alert) Princess Leia, was sent to the lush green world of Alderaan. A decade on, Obi-Wan is just plain Ben and has taken up a minimum wage job in what looks like a tuna canning factory. And Luke is an oblivious pre-teen cared for by his grumpy Uncle Owen (Joel Edgerton).

But then the big bad universe rudely interrupts Kenobi’s mid-life funk. On Alderaan, little Leia – portrayed with the perfect mix of vim and innocence by Vivien Lyra Blair – has been kidnapped and taken to the seedy cyberpunk planet of Daiyu, a neon hellscape shamelessly indebted to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Reluctantly agreeing to track her down, Kenobi jets off to Daiyu, where he encounters a fake Jedi named Haja (Kumail Nanjiani).

He also runs into the Jedi-slaying Grand Inquisitor (Rupert Friend, kitted out like a mid-budget Doctor Who monster) and sidekick Reva. Which is how Kenobi learns that his disciple Anakin is alive and desperately seeking Kenobi. And then we have our first look at Christensen’s Vader – bobbing like a malevolent slug in that huge jar of viscous liquid (shades of Baron Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune).

There was a time when a new Star Wars saga would have ranked as a major happening in the nerd-o-verse. Alas, it’s a sign how far the franchise has fallen that Obi-Wan Kenobi feels less like a major disturbance in the force than just more Disney+ content churned out to keep subscriber numbers up.

McGregor brings tremendous depth and empathy as Kenobi and the show is worth staying with for him alone. And who knows? Perhaps it will crank up a gear when Christensen finally climbs out of his space-flask and faces off against his old frenemy. For now, Obi-Wan is watchable but nothing more.