A disappointment

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 1999)

I went into The Phantom Menace trying to keep an open mind. I had read the early reviews and heard all about the Jar Jar Binks problem but still I thought, this is a Star Wars movie, it MUST be good!
It started well, the opening crawl rolled up the screen and John William's Star Wars score filled the theater. The opening scenes were great too then we were introduced to Jar Jar. What on earth was George Lucas thinking when he wrote this ridiculous character? He looks ridiculous, sounds even worse and does his best to spoil the movie. He almost succeeds too if it wasn't for the always excellent Liam Neeson, Ewan McGreggor and the amazing but under-used Darth Maul.
The story mostly serves the special effects and feels like it's doing a lot of set-up for Episodes 2 & 3, but at the same time is a little flat and lacking in that Star Wars magic that made the other movies so good. The effects are mostly good, but some of the creature designs are straight out of Fraggle Rock and look terrible.
I sincerely hope that Lucas sees sense with Episodes 2 & 3 and drops Jar Jar and his cartoony race of Gungans from the story. I doubt this movie could ever have lived up to the expectations laid upon it but had George bothered to write a better script and dropped the huge amounts of comic relief I'm sure it would have faired a lot better.
Go see it (as I'm sure you all will) but don't expect too much.