Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

User Review

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  Barneyonmovies

  4 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: What's interesting about George Lucas' Star Wars prequels is that they're about people trying but failing to do good in a system of power, war and bureaucracy, and you certainly get glimpses of that in 'The Phantom Menace.' The Jedi Council are introduced as arrogant and blind by dismissing Qui-Gon and the young Anakin, the politics of the Senate are presented as a mess of lies and falsities, and the shadow of inevitability that comes with the audience knowing how everything ends makes all those doing good look a little naive. That kind of nuance is engaging because it's something which feels rather real and contemporary, and it sits in direct contrast with the more black-and-white, good-vs-evil heroism of the original trilogy.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: The only thing with this first prequel though is that that interesting stuff isn't really in the foreground yet. The arrogant Jedi and the corrupt Senate aren't given much development and the feeling of a galaxy approaching war isn't really built either, so the world around the two central Jedi isn't as opressing and difficult as it seems in the subsequent films. Also, the aforementioned pair aren't overly engaging beyond a quippy surface level because the narrative doesn't spend much of its time testing them. Qui Gon and Obi-Wan go on a mission to disrupt a trade dispute but then end up spending most of their time sneaking around with the irritating Jar-Jar Binks, being sat in a space-ship, or spending what feels like hours watching Anakin do some pod-racing. In fact, it's because the narrative is so thinly-drawn that the film decides it must rely on such boring tangents to pad it out, and the only character who gets any real development from them is the young Anakin. We feel for him being ripped from his home and it's interesting to see the beginnings of such a volatile Jedi, but the fact all of that falls on the shoulders of a young actor (at the hands of a writer/director who's hardly gifted at bringing the best out of his performers) makes any drama associated with that fall a little flat. Couple that with the over-reliance on crumby CGI and you've got yourself a rather weightless introduction to a trilogy.
  
  VERDICT: A film that introduces us to the interesting world of the Star Wars prequels with a weak narrative and lots of boring tangents, 'The Phantom Menace,' had some good stuff in it, it's just rather boring on the whole.

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