Slight suction

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 1999)

Well, not that anyone would care for my opinion - I just have to write it anyway. There is one and only one reason to see this movie and (correct) it's the special effects. They are amazing. They are beyond anything ever seen before. They are nearly flawless (from a technical point of view) and perfectly integrated. Everything else in this movie was pretty much forgettable and some things really hurt (me at least). Among all things, this movie starts with a taxation dispute. Gone are the days of swashbuckling heroes with a loose tongue and a good sense of humor. Everything is business now, even the storyline. For the loose tongue we get wooden dialoge (which at certain points is just really, really bad and completely unbelievable) and the humor is now provided by fully animated fart jokes and one of the most annoying sidekicks I have ever seen. The force is now the effect of some microbes and can be measured by means of a blood sample and Darth Vader is virgin-born messiah who speaks to his mom as if reciting from ancient scriptures (altough I believe this point may be altered in the coming episodes). In this galaxy, I would not be too surprised to find the planet Zeist somewhere. But all of this would be unimportant if the story would run smoothly. Unfortunately it does not. The movie takes no time to introduce us into its universe, we get thrown right into it. The plot is contrived and most scenes feel packed with necessary references for the sequels and expository dialoge. Those which are not are technically excellent, but really superfluous from a story point of view. The light saber 'duels' for example are top notch action and far better than anything seen in the original trilogy, but Darth Maul is just your typical pop-up-enemy with no background and totally lacks the evil aura of the original Darth Vader. Even worse is senator Palpatine, who we know will become the evil emperor finally. There is nothing scary or sinister about him and none of his manipulative tricks is ever shown. The only scary thing is our knowledge of his eventual fate. There is a lot that I would still like to comment, but let me just mention the scene cuts. The editing left me extremely unsatisfied as I felt some scenes were cut right in the middle. This very much added to my impression, that this film is overcrowded and tries to accomplish too much in too little time.
Anyhow, I gave this movie a 7, the special effects just were that good. Also the soundtrak is very well done and Neeson really saves the day, making this movie watchable regardless of its flaws