Jaw Droppingly Bad

Rating: 1/10 (26 February 2007)

The long awaited "prequel" to the Star Wars trilogy is a major disappointment on all levels.The whole new cast characters are merely cardboard figures who show no real dept or emotion.It's hard to believe that innocent young Annakin Skywalker will grow up to be the evil Darth Vader. Too many special effects bombard the viewer from beginning ro end. Most of them are so over designed that they create not one sense of awe or wonder. The underwater city looks like a fish bowl ornament, the planet Coruscant looks too much like Fritz Lang's Metropolis and the spacecraft are just too uninspiring, especially when compared to the futuristic ones from the previous three episodes.The only good sequence in this mess is the podrace- a sort of rocket powered hot rod race. Taking place in and around a Roman style arena, this sequence obviously owes its debt to the chariot race from Ben Hur- yet even this lacks the excitement or majesty of the sequence it rips off. In all fairness to George Lucas, the Italian Reniassance inspired design of the planet Naboo ain't too bad. Other than that, this film is just a total waste of time. You just sit there waiting for something to happen and it doesn't. PS- "ET" side, has there EVER been a more annoying character than the computer generated Jar Jar Binks?The FORCE ain't with this one!