Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
A film review by Gregory Cook
©1999 Gregory Cook
Let me begin by saying that over the past few months, I, and most of the members of rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc, have been inundated with spoilers and as of late reviews of this film. Unlike some, I chose not to avoid the spoilers (nor did I seek them out). But I read as many reviews as I could. Despite the overall negative tone from both professional critics and fans alike, I feel they had an overall positive effect of lowering expectations in those who had built up way too much faith in the film. I will not say that "The Phantom Menace" is "just a movie" as many have, but I will say that it is the product of humans, and as a result cannot be perfect. Disclaimers aside, I went in expecting to find "The Phantom Menace" more enjoyable than "Return of the Jedi," and I was not disappointed in this respect. The film was amazing. Many have panned both the writing and the direction. While I find Lucas' direction of the human actors to be lacking (as well as his dialogue), I do not agree with this overgeneralized condemnation of everything in the film. Well, everything but the music--John Williams has gone relative unscathed. The writing was fine. All of the action, and most of the interaction, are faithful to the feel of the original trilogy. Now, as to the character everyone had the most trepidation about: Jar Jar Binks did not, as many had predicted, "ruin" the movie. While his antics were a bit distracting and took up more than enough time towards the start of the film, he later became much less annoying--a process of adaptation to a new comic relief sidekick that most fans will no doubt experience. I was born in 1977, so unfortunately I cannot relate quite as well to the situation with "A New Hope," but I am sure many people had problems with C-3PO in May of that year. Jar Jar added too much humor for some, myself included, but this movie needs it. It has the most difficult task of any of the films (with the exception of whatever turns out to be the Star Wars' saga's finale), that of introducing an entire galaxy and its populations. Understandably, the film's running time is jam-packed full of explanations, events, the introduction of new species and civilizations, and, of course, action sequences. The pace, therefore, was at times much too breakneck, but again this was expected. The other computer generated characters were superb. Watto was excellent as Anakin's owner, most notably. The battle droids, while having poorer aim than the Empire's legions of stormtroopers, served as a good battleforce, since the two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), could not simply use their persuasive powers to win (though they did use their "push" ability a time or two to impact the droids physically). An army of human (or Neimodian) enemies would have been too easy for them to fight. Turning to the "real" characters, then: Ewan McGregor was perfect as Obi-Wan. His Alec Guiness impression aside, every bit of personality that shown through his sparse lines was right on the mark. Obi-Wan will no doubt continue to be portrayed this well by McGregor, and for that I am quite thankful. Liam Neeson brings a solemnity to Qui-Gon Jinn that balances Obi-Wan's (and Anakin's, for that matter) youthful rashness. Yet, he has his own careless tendencies as well. Both Jedi come across as very human; criticism of their woodeness is not really accurate--they were serious when the situation called for it, and this just happened to be the case quite often. Portman, who I immensely enjoyed in "The Professional," is good here. She only gets to express emotion in her few scenes with Anakin (Jake Lloyd), but we have a glimmer of things to come from those moments. While perhaps not exactly counting as a member of the supporting cast, Jake Lloyd was acceptible as a young Anakin Skywalker. Unfortunately for most post-teens, his gleeful repetitive shooting-galleryesque destruction of battle droids in two separate scenes are a bit overblown. However, I suppose they do forecast a bit of an unfeeling lack of compassion that he is to develop over the entire prequel trilogy, his tragic flaw. The single thing that was a bit too much for me to suspend my disbelief towards was his accident torpedoing of the main power reactor for the entire Neimodian ship, thereby saving the Gungan army on the surface of Naboo. His mother, Shmi (Pernilla August), is a bit underemotional at his leaving (crying either tears of sadness for him leaving her or tears of joy for him finally living his dream would have been nice--but the front she must put on to not give him additional guilt is appropriate, I suppose). Otherwise, she is great. Samuel L. Jackon, while not quite as "bombad" (as Jar Jar might say) as his characters in "Pulp Fiction" or "Jackie Brown," is nonetheless effective in his handful of lines. I look forward to seeing him in action in Episode II. Yoda looks a little too young (only a few decades have passed by the time "Empire Strikes Back" rolls around, after all), but his lines sound less corny in context than they did in the trailers. The villains were not the focus of this episode as much as they were in the original trilogy, but what little screen time they got was used to great effect. Darth Maul (Ray Park) is quite intimidating, and his pacing shark-like walk while waiting to fight the Jedi is tantalizingly suspenseful. The duel (or perhaps duel isn't the word for him taking on both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon at once) with the Jedi is magnificent. Without a doubt it surpasses EVERY existing lightsabre duel in the original trilogy, including the excellent one between Luke and Darth Vader at the climax of "Empire Strikes Back." Palpatine, a senator not yet come to imperial power here, is given subtle menacing touches by Ian McDiarmid here. Especially excellent was his foreshadowing of things to come with his comments to Anakin at the end of the film. Aside from the wonderful lightsabre fight, the best action sequence is, unsurprisingly, the pod racing sequence. However, at three laps it dragged on a bit too long. Still, it has me wanting to play the PC version as soon as possible, so perhaps I am only bitter at it trapping me into buying the game. The space battle that Anakin participates in is a little short, a little too simple, and not quite as engaging as I had hoped, unfortunately. All that will change in the next two episodes, though, so I am content to wait. No one knows if "The Phantom Menace" will break the box-office record, but frankly, it doesn't matter; as long as Lucas has enough money to finance the next installment, fans will be happy. And from all the foreshadowing in this film, I can guarantee that the next one will satisfy our curiosity. Can Lucas shape this trilogy into a three-part play, with the auspicious beginnings eventually becoming corrupted and destroyed? Yes. Will he do so and surpass his original trilogy? Perhaps. But I, for one, have faith in him doing so.
Rating (0 - 10): 9.0
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