The Force That Wasn't

Rating: 5/10 (3 June 1999)

I went into Phantom wanting to judge this film more lightly than I usually would, but there are just too many glaring flaws in construction:
(1) obvious and flat in the entire Tatooine thread
(2) uninspired action sequences--e.g., pod race (Ben Hur did it much better), droid shoot outs, closing battle w/ Gungans
(3) an interesting but labyrinthine political thread
(4) choppy editing (refer to Qui Gon Jin-Darth Maul showdown (which I _did_ like))
(5) lifeless and unconvincing character acting (with Neeson being the _only_ exception)
(6) an appalling attempt to demystify the Force
(7) blatant story retreads from ROTJ--e.g., (7a) Princess in white giving an award to the heroes, (7b) space battle won with two torpedoes; (7c) seemingly overmatched battle between "savage" natives and a technologically-advanced opposing force, (7d) the insufferable Jar-Jar Binks' equivalency to Ewoks, (7e) a vanquished enemy flailing down a (seemingly) bottomless pit, etc.)
(8) a weak presence of Evil (Palpatine is not made significant; Darth Maul is barely present)
(9)not to mention a story that stops cold in the theatre three times.
With all of that, I simply could not give Phantom more than a "C+", and could not imagine any adult (who sees this film) being any less forgiving. To put it plainly, I found TPM neither fun nor up to snuff.