Not Bad But Shoulda' Been Better...

Rating: 4/10 (22 May 1999)

We've all been waiting quite a while for George Lucas to come out with his highly-anticipated prequels for the Star Wars Trilogy. And while this one fills the void somewhat, I would be lying to say that I wasn't disappointed. While the much-touted fx are quite extravagant, Lucas glops it on, like so much computer-generated katsup, covering up the gaping hole created by a thin story & even thinner characters. As usual, everything in the Star Wars universe is shown in black and white: you are either good or evil, no shades in between, no complex characters or motivations that complicate real life, where on occasion good people perform evil deeds, etc. No, that would take too much effort to show. The bad characters are obviously, irredeemably bad, and are made-up to show it, while the good characters are flawlessly good. While I liked the scenes showing the planets, but didn't care much for the people who inhabited them - the Naboo are obviously the "white" people, and they are rather bland and vanilla; the leathery Gronks (sp?) are the "dark" people, and are given a horrifying accent & exaggerated movements; the Trade Federation people seem only interested in money & have pretty obvious "oriental" accents. I'm not sure what Lucas is trying to say here, but it seems fairly sophmoric. Let's get one thing fairly clear here: Ja'r Ja'r, or whatever the hell his name is, is a constant irritation & obvious plot device. He's worse than that annoying little kid that ruined Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom. And while we're at it, Anakin Skywalker is pretty irritating too, although that maybe partially blamed on a weak script and some pretty amateurish acting. Liam Neeson & Ewan McGregor are both fine, especially McGregor, whom we hope has more to do and say in the next picture. Natalie Portman trys to overcome the shortcomings of the script, and that's good for something I guess. The fight scenes with Darth Mol are very good; I wish moore had been shown - except what's up with the orange laser door thing?? Too many things happen for no explainable reason; these poorly masked plot devices which are used to push the moovie along manage to drain much of the energy of the film. This is especially true of "The Force", the supreme deus ex machina which allows the good characters to get away with practically anything, no matter how ludicrously far-fetched. This moovie also finally shows something even more useless than imperial stormtroopers: the Republic battle 'droids. These pathetic metal fodder spend the entire moovie shooting their little laser guns, hitting nothing, and getting decimated by everything. As a matter of fact, Naboo is invaded and involved in a war, but you'd never know because almost no one dies, there is no blood, and the only ones who get "killed" are the poor battle 'droids - but it's ok because they are robots, and they don't count, so bring yer kiddies so we can sell moore toys. Yes, this sounds a bit cynical, because this could have been a great, mammoth moovie, if only Lucas had put some time and effort into telling a good story with well-rounded characters, instead of loading up the eye-candy. But if you liked Independence Day or Armageddon, ie "see shiney things go boom", chances are you'll love this as well. I think die-hard Star Wars fans will be disappointed at the lack of depth.