The Phantom Menace Movie Review

THE biggest highly anticipated film of ALL TIME. There, I said it.

We got Star Wars first in 1977. Fans were enthralled. They imagined themselves flying through space. They saw aliens in their local bar. They fantasized about intergalactic universe plots. We yearned for more Star Wars for 20 years. Then, we got it. Sort of. The Phantom Menace fulfilled some of our Star Wars dreams, and left others stepped on in the mud and trashed. Here we go.

Let's start with the title: the Phantom Menace. It's not bad. It leaves us wanting more and tells us something of what the film is about. It sounds kind of cool. For this movie we knew it was going to be the origin of the galaxy and all the Darth Vader Luke Skywalker plot stories explained. We expected high amounts of special effects and cool alien worlds. We did get these last two things from the Phantom Menace at least. First, the overall plot was weak: an intergalactic politic issue about trade. What 'the menace' has to do with this trade dispute is unknown. Next, we have a Great villian in this movie: Darth Maul. He was evil and fulfilling in every way that Vader wasn't. We had an equally respectable bad guy. His costume make up was unbelievable. He never spoke, which was ok. His fighting skills were incredible. We loved Maul as the enemy. There was just one problem. He died TOO early! He died in an epic double lightsaber battle. The problem with this is he should have stayed and been the villian for three consecutive movies, like Darth Vader was. They went to all this effort to make that costume and put that makeup on. Only to have him die in the very first movie. Ok, now, the second problem with the Phantom Menace- Jar Jar Binks. He was a wonderfully created completely cgi character. But, he spoke like a carribbean slave from the year 1754. He speaks with the exact same accent as african american slaves did in the pre-america times. Um, you just broke the 3rd wall, don't you think, George? You can't put a real world accent in with an extra planetary story. You have to make the characters at least have neutral accents and voices. You don't have them talking like they are from the country Alabama, because Alabama does not exist on planet Naboo. The creation of Naboo was unbelievable. The elegant buildings and waterfalls were a spectacle. This was a very strong aspect of The Phantom Menace. The buildings looked very peaceful and the water was amazing. The underwater village was also quite a spectacle. This was a glowing wonderland underwater. We can also give our highest compliments to this. They should have simply had Jar Jar be a simple alien, with a simple accent. It would have made the film 5 times better. Or even have him hardly talk at all. The next thing -- the acting from Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman). It was so dry. It was stiff as a board. Her words had no tonality, no fluctuation, no emotion. She did not seem to be the righteous Lord of the galaxy. Instead she seemed like an uninteresting unintelligent boring lady with too much makeup. I don't think she smiled once throughout the whole movie. Next, the accent of Obi Wan (Ewan McGregor). His accent was too British. It was too polite, too polished. If you look at Obi Wan in the first Star Wars, he has an American accent. He does not have a british accent. Qui Gon Jin, this was the best acting job in the movie, done by Liam Neeson. He was the backbone to the movie. Next, we have young Darth Vader. This character is a very good actor, Jake Lloyd. However, they made the future prince of darkness to be such a pussy in his early life! They call him "Annie" as his nickname. So you give Darth Vader a woman's nickname as a child? Annie? That is not at all what we expect or wanted. It makes us disrespect him. It's annoying. We did not like this. Now, the pod racing scene. This was another exciting and thrilling part about the movie. We got new technology and a high speed racing scene. This was cool. The different characters and their pods we enjoyed. The effects of all this were not bad. In the end, most of us cannot even tell you what the plot of the Phantom Menace was about, nor why it was a phantom menace (darth maul). Or how they solved the Phantom Menace. Maul had no character development. It was like he was there and then he wasn't. He was a strong enough character to at least be in the next three movies. The underground creatures in the ocean world were amazing. The journey he took on that underwater vehicle through all that was probably the best part of the movie. This was so incredible. We really took that trip underneath the ocean with them and felt the monsters down there beneath the depths.

Overall, for Phantom Menace we expected an interesting badass space epic as a prequel to the Star Wars movies. We expected a great plot and for some interesting things to be explained about Darth Vader and Obi Wan. Instead we got an annoying kid, an alien acting like an american slave character badgering a british man and a jedi master with long hair, a princess with the demeanor of a board, and some amazing alien worlds. There were at least some cool special effects here. Lucas should have consulted me on Star Wars Episode 1! -MovieReviewCorner