THE PHANTOM MOVIE

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 1999)

Forty minutes into "Stars Wars: Episode 1--The Phantom Menace" one character, eyeing the impending storm announces: "it's very bad." True to form the storm along with the rest of the movie appears to live up to this apt description as well. Bland, derivative, and sophomoric "The Phantom Menace" is strictly a by-the-numbers movie conceived by focus groups and corporate executives--a deadly combination that probably robbed the film of its life force and a singular, coherent vision. Trying to be all things to all people the latest installment of the "Star Wars" saga is indeed a bloodless creation totally devoid of heart and soul. The Force must have taken a wrong turn, landed in Toysarus and applied for permanent residency. Someone should remind Mr. Lucas that a movie and a movie-tie-in are not the same thing at all. It is therefore unsurprising that "The Phantom Menace" is long on special effects and short on wit and imagination. It is so attuned to the millennium angst that it seems to be manufactured more by computers than man. It is as if the entire human population has been effectively shut out of the filmmaking process. Computers 1. Man 0. Phantom menace rules.