Lives up to its title, depending on how long you spent in line.

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 1999)

This film is probably the most anticipated one in a long time, because its production was inevitable ever since the original trilogy became so popular. Some people have been waiting for its release ever since Lucas announced the trilogy of prequels was underway. Unfortunately, this much time of anticipation means many people may have gotten their hopes raised a little too high. Don't get me wrong--this film definitely works as far as the "Star Wars" movies go, but just not quite as well as the earlier films did. I hesitate to say this is the "worst" film of them, because I did like it, and I liked all the others. It's just that each of the other three were better, though not by too much. Not having ever had to wait for the release of one of the original films, I don't know how different they would have seemed to me if I did. But this film did have its share of flaws.
There were moments in the film that seemed put there for no other purpose than to get applause from the audience, though it may have seemed that way partly because it did get applause. There didn't seem to really be a point to having a cameo appearance by Jabba the Hutt, for example. Also, apparently someone couldn't resist the temptation to make "I have a bad feeling about this" one of the first lines in the film. Perhaps that will get it out of their system for the remainder of the trilogy. Another thing is that in this film, some of the action sequences seemed a little too segregated from the rest of the movie, as if it were a video game. When some action sequences started, instead of just letting it happen, it practically spelled it out for you before starting, as if they didn't give the audience enough credit. At one point in the film, Anakin Skywalker is told to hide somewhere safe, so he chooses the cockpit of a fighter. As if that's not obvious enough, Obi-Wan tells him whatever he does, stay in that cockpit, and there is a brief pause so people can figure out where this is leading, as if we couldn't tell. But the lightsaber duel definitely lived up to those scenes in the first films, with the twist of having it be a three-way fight, between Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), Darth Maul (Peter Serafinowicz), and Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson).
Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson both do excellent jobs in their roles. McGregor faces the challenge of living up to the standards Alec Guinness left him, but I've always thought he was a good actor, and he does the job well. Anakin Skywalker is played by Jake Lloyd, who's about a nine-year-old. I tried to suspend a little disbelief for his sake, since this is his first role in a movie, and nobody is expecting him to be the best actor in the film, but there were moments where it was just too distracting because he'd say something that sounded like no more than a line-reading, and he seemed to have no emotion behind what he was saying. Hopefully it won't be as big of a problem in the next film. Darth Maul, this film's equivalent of Darth Vader, manages to strike at least almost as much terror as Vader did. He doesn't have many lines in the film, but it is made up for in the fight scenes, when he shows off his speed.
The film draws many equivalents to "A New Hope", with George Lucas back in the director's chair. There is a similar ending sequence, with the heroes standing before everyone and a celebration taking place. The climax consists of a lightsaber duel, a space battle, and a ground battle, sort of like the climax of "Return of the Jedi". It was almost as good a final battle scene, but didn't last as long. It is one thing that may have been a little disappointing to the people who have been eagerly awaiting the film for so long, because some might have been expecting it to dwarf all the other films' climaxes, but was as good a battle as those in the other films. Despite the fact that this is the film to follow the largest gap between release dates of the "Star Wars" films, the first film shouldn't be expected to be the greatest of them all anyway, because it is largely exposition for those people seeing it before any of the other films, but it does a good enough job to be Episode 1 of a 6 part (maybe more) saga. Like "A New Hope" this starts out with a lot of exposition instead of just plunging into battle as in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", but because this film is at least almost as good as "A New Hope", I have a feeling Episode 2 will be even better, as was "The Empire Strikes Back".