Subject: Review: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

From: [email-masked] (Steven Bailey)
Date: 30 Apr 2000 18:37:55 GMT

Speaking as an outsider in whom The Force is not very strong, Star Wars
Episode I: The Phantom Menace is quite agreeable. It's not as lush or
cinematic as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), but in terms of imagery
(and even plot twists), it's leagues ahead of the original Star Wars
(1977) and the dreary second sequel, Return of the Jedi (1983). (For
those who have no idea what those titles mean, your homework is to spend
six hours watching "The Star Wars Trilogy" on video before reading any
further.)

The latest movie is not without its quibbles. Star Wars creator George
Lucas's plot--mostly about a bedraggled queen (Natalie Portman) and her
budding relationship with Anakin Skywalker (9-year-old Jake Lloyd), who
will grow up to be villainous Darth Vader--has more crosscurrents than
director Lucas can handle. As he made clear in Star Wars, Lucas's
directorial style is to throw TV-style lighting on the actors and let
them mangle the dialogue for a while. The Star Wars series' "Give me a
break" quotient rises perilously high here. (In particular, the origin
of Anakin Skywalker's conception is a true whopper.) And the movie's
attempt at ultimate villainy--a horned creature named Darth Maul--seems
created solely to goose up the movie's final big battle.

On the plus side, we get the origins of R2D2, C3P0, Yoda (voiced again
by Frank Oz), Obi-Wan Kenobi (nicely done by Ewan McGregor) and, of
course, Darth Vader. Among the new creations, the most delightful--in
only my opinion, perhaps--is Jar Jar Binks (well-voiced by Ahmed Best),
and Watto, the oversized-fly creature who barters with Obi-Wan's mentor
Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) for slave Anakin's freedom. The plot twists
involving Binks and the queen, which at first seem tiresome, turn quite
fresh at the end--especially in Binks's battle scene, which goes so far
as to rip off Buster Keaton's chase scene in SEVEN CHANCES (1925) and
makes it work.

My biggest reservation with The Phantom Menace is the same one that
I--and countless other reviewers--have had since Star Wars first reared
its head: This series sometimes is a bit too comfortable with the
non-human touch. In an awful lot of scenes, the payoff depends upon
characters created entirely in someone's computer. And the ones that
should depend upon human impact--especially a couple of separation
scenes--show how much more comfortable Lucas is with digital creations
than with human beings. One hopes the upcoming sequels will allow for a
little more humanism.

On the other hand--who's counting?--most of the actors here fare better
than did Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, perhaps because some proven
actors are on board this time. Neeson, McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, and
especially Portman come across commendably. And if you can hang on until
the inevitable cross-cutting finale, the payoffs are quite satisfying.

As with the last two Star Wars movies, The Phantom Menace does assume
you've seen the previous movies in order to get some of the payoffs, so
it might convert few newcomers. But one wonders how many Star Wars
newcomers are left in the universe.

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is rated PG for mild innuendo
and comic-book-style violence.

Submitted by: Steven Bailey
http://pages.hotbot.com/movies/skad13

Steven Bailey, a movie reviewer for The Beaches Leader newspaper in
Jacksonville Beach, Florida, has his reviews posted on The Internet
Movie Database at:
http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Steven+Bailey

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