A Star Wars Film That Fails To Leave An Impression

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2017)

When I was younger and watched every film in the Star Wars franchise I pretty much liked all of them including this one. While today I still hold the same opinion on most of them The Phantom Menace and Attack of The Clones have fallen down majorly to me and this film in particular suffers the most from that in my mind. Like Attack of The Clones I don't think this is a bad film I just didn't think it was anything special but unlike that film I didn't find anything truly satisfying in this film. But there is still plenty of positives, for one the action sequences are all brilliant, all the lightsaber fights and space ship combat are all perfectly directed by George Lucas and in these scenes the film truly does entertain me. Darth Maul was also a fantastic antagonist, he was completely threatening, despite not saying much he left such an impression on anyone watching this film and is the most memorable thing ago this film for me. Another thing I liked about this movie was Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor they both had really good chemistry and it was nice to see a new interpretation of Obi Wan as a less experienced and more reckless character. But every thing else in this film just falls apart. The cripplingly slow pacing of this film lead to so many boring sequences that make this film unbearable to watch at times. While I liked the two protagonists the rest of cast had no development, backstory of anything unique to them. The senate scenes in particular are so bad, they have no real need to be in this film or at the very least could have been focused on less, it makes you forget that your watching a Star Wars film and more of a mediocre political thriller. Now I didn't personally think Jake Lloyd was that bad in this film I just think the writing for his character was the problem, we never got the impression that this child was as special as he had been made out to be and was honestly just an annoying character. This film also changes certain things from the original trilogy that just didn't need to be changed such as the explanation of The Force, this just makes the whole concept of it seem less magical and more dull and didn't belong in this film or any Star Wars film honestly. The last battle of this film is very muddled, the battle being split into three like it was the Return of The Jedi just didn't work as well for this film as the characters hadn't been as nearly well developed as they were in that movie.
Overall The Phantom Menace was a fairly dull movie in terms of characters, plot and pacing, it's boring at times but not without it's entertaining portions. Don't get me wrong I don't hate this film nearly as much as other Star Wars fans do but when compared to the rest of the franchise it just doesn't stand out nearly as much.
60%/C+