Good movie, but still a disappointment.

Rating: 6/10 (2 November 1999)

Anybody who's anybody knows that Star Wars is a great, timeless, American classic. With a terrific story and one one of the best movies ever made. I am a huge fan of the Star Wars Trilogy and when this came out, I was really excited, i couldnt wait to see it.
But I was greatly disappointed in it. First and foremost, Jar Jar Binks completely weakened the movie, the idea to have this movie aimed at children was a very bad one, Jar Jar would gone better in his own movie, instead of ruining this one, that was my biggest concern. Whoever the genius was that came up with this one is, he needs to be fired, i mean completely, no more movies for him except children's. You wanna make a kids movie, go ahead, have fun, but do you have to ruin one of the greatest stories ever?!?!

Also, the boy who played young Skywalker is all wrong. I mean, you just cant have the future Darth Vader be played by someone with a "matter-of-fact" voice tone all the time. no offense to the kid, but whoever hired him needs some help, i mean come on! Off the top of my head, i'm sure Mason Gamble could play him better, he's a fine young actor.
They almost turned Star Wars into a happy jolly story, what happened to the drive between good and evil, it just went right out the window, I blame most of that on Jar Jar.
Okay, enough about the bad stuff, now lets go to the upsides of this movie. First of all, Liam Neeson saved this movie from totally bombing, he was absolutely wonderful. The only thing that made this movie REALLY great and a whole lot more interesting. He subtly shows the greatness of his character, and does a great job of it.
The story wasn't all that bad either, i mean it could have been a lot better, but it still gets its purpose down, and shows a great beginning to the epic tale. But as I said before, cross out Jar Jar, and the movie is twice as good.
Darth Maul also has a cool character and helped bring bring the really great Star Wars characters to the screen that we know so well, such as Han Solo, Chewey, and so many others. I must say his villain was not as good as he could have been, I think if you give him some authority, he has a more powerful and important character, but they still did a good job of making him the main enemy here. So the movie was not a total loss... they salvaged what they could and made a good but scratchy beginning to the Star Wars saga. I am hoping for a better second movie.