STAR WARS: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
It was an overcast, muggy Tuesday afternoon, the day before the eagerly-awaited "Star Wars" prequel was slated to blast into theaters. I walked up to the bored-looking ticket seller at my local multiplex (twenty-four screens to be precise) and asked "So what's the deal with "Star Wars" tickets?" Anticipating a long, drawn-out answer about nothing being available until the 27th and having to wait "over there," the lethargic teenager simply asked me what show I wanted to see. "When's the first one?" I asked. "10am." "And you still have tickets?" "Yes." "Then I'll take one for the ten o'clock show please."
Hmm... No hoopla. No lines. I didn't even have to camp out!
At 9:30am the next morning the parking lot was already pretty full, and you can bet people weren't there for the new Jet Li movie. The ticket taker told me to hang onto my stub at all times, and to sit as close to the middle as possible, as the show was sold out. For a sold-out show there were a lot of empty seats, but by that point all I could think about was my hankering for some gummi sourpatch nightcrawlers.
If you go to see "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace," as it's correctly called (and I suspect you will), I recommend you get there early. Not just in case your particular show happens to be sold out too, but to listen to "Star Wars" junkies complaining about this, that, and the other. My favorite comment came halfway through the film when some numskull whispered reverentially "Shmi Skywalker's the Virgin Mary!"
I saw the original "Star Wars" back in 1977 when it first came out. A lot of hoopla surrounded it at the time and for the most part it was deserving. The special effects were light-years ahead of their time and the story was a classic case of good vs. evil, beautifully realized, and inspired by Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress."
That blast from the brass section as the "Star Wars" insignia appears from out of nowhere and slowly pushes its way into the starry screen still gives me goosebumps.
A little context for you. Although I can't tell a bantha from a Grand Moff Tarkin, I do believe that Harrison Ford can't act his way out of a brown paper bag. I believe that Mark Hamill didn't even try. I believe that Carrie Fisher is a better novelist than she is an actor, I believe that Chewbacca was the series' best character and they should have brought him back for "Episode I," and I believe that the Ewoks were a big mistake (their TV series spin-off an even bigger one). I believe in the twin moons of Tatooine, the golden orbs of Unrath, the curve of Natalie Portman's back, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days...
But getting back to "The Phantom Menace." What did I think of it?
It's okay.
We've been so deluged by special effects-laden movies in the 1990s that we take a lot of today's technical wizardry for granted. The new "Star Wars" film is purported to contain some 2,000 "effects shots" (compared to the 800 or so in "Titanic"), the most in any one movie, but all that stuff seems like overkill at times. We miss what we're supposed to be looking at because there's just too much of it. "Star Wars" did exponential things with technology. Relatively speaking, "The Phantom Menace" would have required special footwear, probably, to have had the same impact.
Nevertheless there are some glorious paintings, models, and backdrops in the film. These cities and civilizations really come alive. The craftsmanship is top-notch, state-of-the-art, exquisite. The costumes, not to mention Natalie Portman's hairdos (she plays Queen Amidala of Naboo) are breathtaking. That's right, breathtaking hairdos. The Jedi commission is made up of a bunch of funny-looking characters ... and Samuel L. Jackson! Terence Stamp is barely in the film. The baddie, Darth Maul, is appropriately named because he looks like some WWF spokesperson in a monk's habit. He's pretty cool.
On the other hand, the Federation's computer-animated droids can't hold a light saber to those imperial storm troopers. Ewan McGregor (as Obi-Wan Kenobi) is as stiff as a post and I hate to say it but the film actually gets a bit boring at times. The need to explain connections to the original trilogy results in a lot of talky sequences and deja-vu, some of it welcome and some of it not. Jar Jar Binks, a walking, wisecracking Rasta duck-billed platypus whose catchphrase is "How rude!" provides much of the comic interest but after a while he tends to blend in with the rest of the lop-eared platypi.
One of the film's big set pieces is a "pod race" featuring the young, fatherless Anakin (Jake Lloyd), an homage to "Ben Hur"'s famous chariot race. The point of all this spectacle is so that Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) can win a bet to pay a winged muppet called Watto for spare parts to fix a crippled spaceship. I know Jedi knights must have some code of ethics but couldn't they have found an easier solution to their problem (like, maybe, steal the hardware, or at least borrow it?). Similarly, part of the deal is to have the enslaved future Chosen One freed but unfortunately our heroes are forced to leave the boy's mother behind. "I tried to win her freedom but Watto wasn't having any of it," says Neeson's character, or words to that effect. Sounds rather pathetic from a Jedi, doesn't it? "I wanted to kill Darth Vader, but when I got to the Death Star, he wasn't home." Puleez.
The dialogue and plot elements aren't the reason to see the film, of course. You expect the general good-guys-have-to-stop-the-bad-guys scenario (here, taxation plays a key role). It's all those brave new worlds, intergalactic shoot-'em-ups, strange reptilian and mechanical creatures, and characters with funny names you can either cheer or hiss, that matters.
And "The Phantom Menace" has got 'em by the score. It's a frenetic visual feast indeed; there's nothing quite like it in the galaxy. Let's just hope that Episodes II and III spend a little more time on character development, that's all.
Written and directed by George Lucas.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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